


not a fragile thing to be coddled (fully formed, ready to run)

by EtherealPrince



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Abuse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst, Charles Xavier Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Child Death, Conflict, Erik Lehnsherr is not a Happy Bunny, Eventual Romance, Forced Pregnancy, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, dadneto, like a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtherealPrince/pseuds/EtherealPrince
Summary: Charles is the Alpha king of the Kingdom of Westchester.Erik was the former Omega prince of Genosha, until the tyrant Sebastian Shaw killed his parents and took over.After a chance meeting at a banquet Charles has his heart stolen, but Erik, fearing the worst from a relationship crossing old kingdom rivalries, is distant. Charles wants to save him from Shaw but Erik is hellbent on doing the saving himself. Through much conflict, heartbreak, and anger, they push away and come together like magnets.[Title from What I Didn't Know Before by Ada Limón]
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Sebastian Shaw
Comments: 75
Kudos: 75





	1. thoroughbred

CHARLES

The new King of Genosha has skin like wax, teeth too white, and a snake's forked tongue, and Charles hates him.

He knows how Shaw came into power. The entire country knows. Assassinating the former king and queen and imprisoning their eldest son should get you executed, but as long as Shaw’s mind is working he will never die. The people with the gifts, the people who are just above human, do not fit into the confines of traditional law. Everyone wants Shaw dead except the people who benefit from his tyranny.

Westchester and Genosha had been allies for centuries, until Shaw came along. After one meeting with Charles’ stepfather, when he was king 30 years ago, the alliance was swiftly severed and the two kingdoms had been warring ever since. Since he was a young boy, Charles mourned the peace and joy that the alliance brought to their people and grieved over the wagons full of bodies being hauled into mass graves just in front of the mountains. Their pain was tangible to his mind, and he did not get much sleep.

When Charles became king he sought to reinstate the alliance once more. When he was young he thought it would be one conversation with the King of Genosha that would do it, and then everything would be fine again, but that could not be further from the truth. He should’ve known that Shaw would hold grudges, would manipulate, would bribe, would kill the messengers he was sent and have their bodies be dragged back within Westchester’s castle walls to show Charles. Clearly, there was no intention from his side that the alliance would ever be put into place again if all they were doing was talking about it. 

So Charles gave up on being nice.

In his 32 years of life, Charles Xavier as Alpha King of Westchester had seen perhaps too much. Whether he was using his own eyes or looking through someone else’s, he had seen more death and pain and suffering than the most experienced of knights. His heart bled for every beautiful mind he felt blink out of existence. Yet despite all that whirled within his mind and clouded his memories with blood and darkness, nothing could have rivaled the fierce brutality of the Genoshan warrior army as they slaughtered Charles’ people. It was one skirmish at the border, that was all it was supposed to be, but...there was a reason Charles wasn’t allowed to make military decisions. 

His men were killed and Genosha’s fighters moved inward onto Westchesterian territory as a declaration of war. Just like that, hostile neutrality turned into battle.

After getting injured in battle and almost dying from the infected wound, Charles returned to his throne with a bad leg and a limp but was no less dangerous. Telepaths were powerful and terrifying and coveted because they were such. Charles knew Shaw kept one as his right-hand woman because he had talked to her, exactly once, and then her skin had crystallized over into diamond and suddenly both her and Shaw were untouchable. She was always with him, wherever he went, and Charles had never been able to enter Shaw’s mind because of her. The horrors he’d see in there he knew would be gruesome, but Shaw needed to be under control. He needed to be removed from the throne since 30 years ago. Charles wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he died or passed on his title to an heir or heiress without taking him down.

And if he was to dispose of Shaw, in some way or another, he knew he'd rescue the former prince at the same time.

Charles knew the late Genoshan king’s son was powerful. He knew Shaw had him imprisoned in some way. He knew he hated Shaw possibly more than anyone else in the country, and Charles knew he was an omega. 

The prince was kept under Shaw and his generals’ close watch every day of every week of every year he had been in power, and if Charles, the most powerful telepath in the known world, couldn’t sense him?

Well. That was a problem. 

Charles had no idea how Shaw could tie down a man filled with so much rage that he could channel into such a destructive power--the power to wield the very metal of the earth. It was all under the prince’s command, yet for 30 years he had done nothing to topple Shaw’s rule.

It scared Charles more than he liked to think about what that said about Shaw.

King Sebastian Shaw of Genosha was immortal, indestructible, and evil, and Charles hated him. Charles didn’t hate a lot of people, but he hated Shaw more than words could describe.

ERIK

Sebastian Shaw ruined Erik’s life and he wanted to kill him.

He was only eight years of age when his mother was killed, and a year older than that when his father joined her in the grave. When he confronted Shaw, as a young boy, and demanded that he give his parents back, Shaw smiled.

Patted his head.

And locked a suppression collar around his neck.

Genosha was a nomadic kingdom, and they lived in tents, but that didn’t make it any less of a prison.

Erik was lost without his connection to metal. Even if he could utilize it, it wouldn’t kill Shaw. Not as long as he was alive and thinking. He grew up in Genosha shackled and imprisoned, and Shaw shot him glances and gave him smiles that made him feel sick.

His mother’s gentle touch and his father’s rumbling laughter were all he had left in his mind in the way of happiness, but even then his memories of his family faded after years and years of abuse. No freedom, no liberty, only loyalty to Shaw and Shaw alone. Erik had tried to off Shaw multiple times, to off himself many more, but there were always eyes in the walls, in the grass, in the sky. Watching him. Making sure he would never find freedom no matter how he went about gaining it.

When Erik turned 18 Shaw bedded him for the first time.

Shaw huffed praises into his ear about how beautiful he was, how he loved his body and his eyes and how he’d surely bear him strong children, and Erik had fallen unconscious from the pain of having Shaw’s knot impaled inside of him without any proper preparation. He felt it was a mercy he wasn’t awake for the majority of that night. When he woke up to blood on the sheets of Shaw’s bed the next morning he cried, but only when there was no one else around.

He wanted his mother.

The next summer, Shaw had been given an heiress.

Young Anya was copper-haired and blue-eyed and an angelic little thing, and Erik, her birth parent, despised ever letting Shaw touch her. She was a fourteen-hour labor and Shaw had held her first, smiled his venomous smile at her, and given Erik a look that said ‘if you ever step out of line, you know what I can do’.

So Erik obeyed.

He loved Anya so very much; she was happy and smiling and she was light, she was the best thing Erik had ever made. She looked at him like he hung the moon and stars just for her and always made faces at Shaw when she saw him, and even though Erik had to hide her face in his chest whenever she did he would let himself laugh with her when Shaw left their presence. He was trusted to be a good mother to her and so they were left alone. Small mercies.

When Anya was three, and Erik 21, Shaw accused him of sleeping with one of the warriors before Anya was born. Erik wasn’t even allowed to fight anymore, so how could he have slept with them, he insisted. Maybe Shaw just wanted an excuse to be cruel, or maybe he wanted to remind Erik where his place was, or maybe he was tired of Anya’s crying- but for whatever the reason, Anya was killed.

“She doesn’t look like me.” Shaw had said to Erik, while he was kneeling in bloodstained grass and screaming until his throat was raw. “Only legitimate heirs and heiresses, Erik, you know that.” 

Like it was something Erik should _know._

“We can always try again, my boy.” Shaw told him, and Erik had wailed, had risen up to get his hands on Shaw in any way possible and hurt him, make him suffer, but one swift backhand and he was out cold on the ground. He woke up tied to a post with his arms up over his head, and he heard Shaw's voice say something about disobedience before a whip struck his back and his vision went fuzzy.

Erik’s 26th year rolled around, and once again he was bearing Shaw’s children. He had learned to whether through the sex by obeying Shaw limply and hoping it was enough to satisfy him, but after Anya he was terrified for whatever babe lay inside of him. Shaw had demonstrated his willingness and ability to kill his own children very clearly. Anya _had_ been his, but she was still dead. Erik could only hope this one was good enough to stay alive.

Pietro and Wanda were two, and they were as thick as thieves right out the womb. Their gifts manifested so soon after they were born that Erik could tell Shaw was actually pleased, and whenever he laughed at Pietro’s speed when he learned to walk and admired the red pulses of light Wanda could produce from her fingers, Erik felt relief rush through him like a wave. He taught them to be obedient and polite to their father, lest they get hurt, and he taught them to control their gifts as they grew. When they asked him what his gift was he never gave them an answer. 

The metal was silent.

When Erik was 29 Shaw was feeling rushed, and in the dead of winter Lorna was born by firelight.

Wanda and Pietro _loved_ her; Shaw was willing to give her a chance because of her beautiful green hair. Erik was just happy she was alive. With their limited words the twins named her themselves, and Wanda dangled little red wisps of magic in the air above her sister’s eyes and laughed when she tried to grab them. With Shaw gone from the birthing tent and the wind quiet outside, Erik sang his mother’s lullaby to his children and felt his family was more complete than it had been in decades.

Shaw, obviously, had no intention of setting Erik free any time soon. As long as he could bear children he’d be kept, and however long that would be for Shaw would be there as well, never aging, never weakening. Still the same smile that Erik remembered from when he was a boy. While his children slept at night Erik dreamt up murder fantasies and imagined what his life would be like with Shaw dead and gone. By day, he was quiet and docile and was not questioned nearly as much as he used to be.

Erik mourned the angry young boy he used to be. He was disappointed in himself but knew he was powerless without anyone on his side but the children. While Shaw was off raiding and terrorizing other kingdoms and giving Genosha more territory he was at home, in the tents, reduced to nothing but a womb that gave Shaw heirs. He wanted his rage back, his fury, because it had given him hope that one day he’d be grown enough to escape. He knew his younger self would hate him now.

But there was nothing he could do.

Lorna grew quick, desperate to catch up to her siblings, and Erik turned his focus to her to keep himself from imploding. She had inherited his command over metal, and he was so proud of her he could cry. Shaw was _very_ happy with this.

“When she’s older, we’ll put a collar on her. No fancy ideas, Erik.” He said, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, and Erik shot him a murderous glare. None of his children would ever have to experience being cut off from their gifts as long as he was alive, he swore it. He’d die before he let any of them come to harm by Shaw’s hands, and that absolutely included him locking a collar around their necks and absolving them of the most remarkable thing that made them _them._  
Erik knew they would be miserable, and they would be angry, and he didn’t want that for them. He didn’t want them to follow in his footsteps.

Shaw seemed to be satisfied with his offspring until Lorna was seven and growing stronger. The twins were ten and were lucky enough to be raised to know of Shaw’s power, enough so that they didn’t disobey him. They hated him, but they had seen Erik after being used and abused by him as punishment, so they didn’t act up.

Lorna was collared the winter she turned seven, and she and Erik mourned her beautiful gift together in their tent. Erik had stroked her hair as she cried and beat his chest and tried to reach for the lantern sitting in the corner of the room, but couldn’t feel it, and Erik remembered doing that exact same thing when he was her age. It was his fault, he thought, for passing on his gift to her. If she had gotten something else things would not be this way.

Just Wanda and Pietro’s gifts weren’t enough for Shaw by this time.

Shaw backed Erik into bed again with the motivation to breed him when he was 36, and Erik was powerless to resist him. Shaw grasped Erik’s jaw while he fucked him and told him he wanted to see his eyes, and Erik glared daggers at him until Shaw shoved his knot inside of him and he gasped for his breath. He thought about Anya and how he hoped, as he did every time he fell pregnant, that this one would not be killed.

When he was six months along Shaw planned to hold a meeting with the King of Westchester.

This was new, and not a good idea, since the two kingdoms had been at war for what felt like forever, now. Civil discussions were long gone, and meetings were forgotten, for the sake of bloodshed and death. Shaw had been convinced to be polite again, however, because he wanted to know what the King wanted this time when his thoughts on reinstating the old alliance had been made painfully clear. Even more strangely, he wanted to bring Erik and the children along. A show of power, Erik presumed, a demonstration that Shaw had multiple powerful offspring and the former prince at his command that would be sure to cut the King of Westchester down to size. Shaw was a selfish megalomaniac and Erik wasn’t surprised that he and his children were to be used as decorations.

When Westchester’s blue and gold appeared on the horizon from the Genoshan camp, Erik watched the sun set behind their approaching horses while Shaw prepared and the children slept.

CHARLES

On an Autumn day when long grass crumpled under wagon wheels and trees let their leaves drop onto horses’ noses, Charles and his sister Raven, Grand General of the Westchesterian army, watched Genoshan territory roll by them as their carriage traveled over open plains. A city of tents grew before them, milling with people, and Charles set his jaw when he felt the ever-boastful pulse of Shaw’s powerful mind greet him from far away. Raven patted his cheek to get him to unclench, good god, and Charles gave her a strained-half smile as he pushed her hand away.

He shook his head like he needed to get rid of something in it. “I have a feeling about this.” He tells his sister.

Raven gives him a look. “Isn’t it ‘I have a bad feeling about this?’”

“Yes, but I can’t tell if it’s good or bad.” Charles replies. “It’s just a feeling.”

“It’s probably just nerves.” Raven says, and the conversation is left at that.

Shaw is just as Charles remembers him, when he comes to greet them at the entrance to camp. Just taller than Charles, with that skin of wax and eyes like a snake. He eyes the cane Charles is supporting his weight on but doesn’t say anything about it, though his smile gets whiter. 

“Your Majesty!” He says, in that hiss-murmur of a voice he has. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Charles smiles, close-lipped at him. “And you as well, Your Majesty. I see you’ve been busy.”

There is a bustling war hall standing in the middle of the camp, built from wood and animal bones and skins, where people ran in and out from. There is a banquet to be had. Charles just wants to get this over with.

“Yes, of course. Couldn’t have us hold our meeting in a tent, hm? Terribly barbaric.” Shaw says, and Charles is reminded all at once that Shaw isn’t even Genoshan by blood. A foreign tyrant overtaking a proud warrior empire, just for the hell of it, and Shaw still doesn’t give a damn about any of their age-old customs and culture. Charles hates him.

Nevertheless, he lets himself and Raven be led into the war hall while their men they had traveled with, their horses, and the carriage full of their belongings are taken elsewhere. It was a day’s trip to the camp from Westchester and back, so they would unfortunately be staying the night. 

Charles elbows Raven when she turns into one of the civilians taking fresh water into the hall and she sighs, her skin rippling back to its normal blue hue. 

“Be nice.” He says to her, more of a reminder of what Shaw would do if he got mad than anything else.

She rolls her eyes, but does nothing else as they are seated at a very long table with Shaw, many of his fiercest warriors, and…

Oh.

Charles knows who that is, and in turn he knows who the three young minds next to him are.

Raven nudges him- “Charles? Close your mouth, idiot.”

Charles snaps his jaw shut, but pays no other sort of attention to Raven as his and the prince’s eyes meet from across the table. Beautiful cool green eyes. Dark auburn hair and a sharp jaw, covered in red scruff. A mind projecting hostility and misery. Charles is enchanted.

 _Hello._ he projects to him, and Charles sees the prince’s eyes widen before Shaw joins them at the table and draws all the attention in the room to himself, as he tended to do. If Charles could give him one (just _one_ ) thing, it was that the man had gravitas.

Charles doesn’t pay much attention to anything Shaw says to introduce him and Raven to the rest of the Genoshans, and only vaguely hears the roaring cheer they get in their honor. All he wants to listen to is the beautiful low hum of the prince’s racing mind, surprised that the King of Westchester was a telepath and newly hoping that perhaps now there was a chance Shaw could be killed. Sorry, Charles wants to say, I’ve tried it before, but he can't.

Shaw chats he and Raven up plenty about the alliance--Charles still has no idea why he even agreed to a meeting when he’s saying the same stuff he’s always said about it, we’re stronger apart and the kingdoms are too far away to be of any use to each other and no offense Your Majesty but I know what you think of my rule. Charles rolls his eyes when Shaw’s not looking and nods intermittently to make it seem like he’s paying attention, when in reality his eyes keep slipping over to the prince and how he’s wrangling the three children sitting next to him. He’s trying to be quiet and unobtrusive, that much is obvious, but he’s projecting enough rage to blow Charles back in his seat.

Charles is sufficiently angered by the collars he sees, both around the prince’s neck and his youngest daughter’s. Suppression tools like that were outlawed in Westchester and he hated seeing one being used on a child and another so worn it looked like it had been around the prince’s neck for decades. Even though he is so angry, the prince is so patient and gentle with the children. Charles skims the surface of his mind and when he finds what he was looking for he glares at Shaw, distracted by Raven’s sweet-talking.

To take advantage of someone so young and _keep_ taking advantage of them...if Charles were a more brutish fighter of a man he’d have Shaw’s cock cut off for his crimes of rape and abuse. He hates him.

Thank god for Raven, though because while she occupies Shaw Charles turns his attention back on the prince. Erik, his name is Erik, his mind provides. No last name--not since his parents had been killed.

 _Hello, Erik._ Charles tries again. This time Erik hides his surprise better and doesn’t even look up from where he was tending to his son’s messy face: _Your Majesty._

_Oh, please, there’s no need for that._ He insists. _I’m Charles. I wish we had been introduced properly._

It’s small, but Erik scoffs. _Sure. The king’s omega speaking out of turn, as if that wouldn’t get someone killed._

Charles is surprised at that- _It wouldn’t. Not while I’m here, at least. I do not prescribe to nearly half as many traditions that Shaw does, I can assure you._

 _You’re going to have to convince me._ Erik thinks, and this time he looks up and meets Charles’ eyes. Charles smiles what he hopes is his least-threatening smile at him, and Erik gives him a toothy grimace.

It’s going to take more than one conversation to get anything more out of Erik, obviously. All Charles can think of him at that moment is that he needs to get he and his children out from under Shaw’s careful eye. Even though he had only searched through the top layers of Erik’s mind, he had seen the cruelty that he had endured under Shaw and the fear his treatment of him inspired from the children, and Charles was sure there was much more he couldn’t see just yet. 

Anyone who looked at Erik saw his suffering. It was in his face, his eyes, his careful posture and wary movements. He had scars where everyone could see them. He didn’t speak unless spoken to, and even then his low voice was a challenge to anyone who dared to approach him. Shaw was the only exception. 

Charles wanted to take all of Erik’s suffering from him, hold it himself, make him feel he was safe and secure and in control, and this was the first time they had ever met.

 _You are not alone._ Charles tells Erik.

Erik meets his eyes again, this time with eyebrows knit and mouth slightly open in something like...hope? Skepticism? Fear? Maybe a mixture of all three. It takes him a second to form coherent words he could think back at Charles.

 _Meet me at this tent in half an hour, if you really want to talk._ He says to Charles, showing him an image of, indeed, a large tent sitting a ways away from the war hall off to the right of the camp. _Tell Shaw you’re going to look at the horses, and put up shields._

Charles is about to ask why he needs shields until he catches sight of the woman near Shaw, who is blonde-haired and pale-skinned and is keeping a very close eye on Erik. He must have had to create mental shields to protect himself and his thoughts from her, Charles realizes, otherwise his volatile emotions and angry memories would get him in trouble with Shaw, surely. As a telepath, he couldn’t forgive someone who would intrude on another person’s privacy like that--not giving someone the dignity of keeping even their innermost thoughts to themselves was inhumane.

Then again, since when had Shaw ever cared about what was humane or not when it came to how he ruled?

Charles nodded minutely, and he and Erik ceased talking. Charles’ mental shields slot themselves into place, protecting his mind from the pale woman, and he tries to eat and pay attention to what Shaw’s saying, finally.

Out of the corner of his eye, while Shaw’s saying something about the latest treasures he had procured from a village he burned last week, Charles sees Erik rise from the table and gather his children to his side. He says something inaudible to Shaw, who pauses and leans to the side to listen, and then smiles, taking Erik’s hand and kissing it before waving them away. Charles would practically feel how vulgar Shaw’s lips felt on Erik’s skin.

“If you’ll excuse Erik for just a moment--he’s putting the children to sleep. Big day for them, of course, and he’s not very good with people anyway.” Shaw purrs.  
Charles scoffs, but hides it in his hand. “Your omega?” He asks Shaw, as if he doesn’t already know what a wonderful soul Erik has and how deeply and desperately he feels, thinks, remembers. As if he could be boiled down to anything as simple as ‘omega’.

Shaw hums. “Yes, he’s a bit of an-- acquired taste, but trust me. The gifts the children have are extraordinary. We’re all very excited about the next one.”

Next one?

Charles doesn’t know what he means, until he really looks at Erik as he and the children leave and absolutely does.

Erik’s just wearing a tunic and pants, belted at his waist, but Charles can definitely see where the fabric drapes over his stomach, just big enough for it to be obvious that he’s with child. He’s given Shaw three children already, Charles thinks, why is he being forced to give him _more?_  
He has to school his face into appearing impressed instead of terribly, terribly sorry, and raises his glass of wine to Shaw. “Congratulations.”

Shaw laughs under his breath, and leans forward just enough to tap his glass against Charles. In his eyes there is something very old, and very dangerous, and Charles’ eyes flick away from his the second that they meet.

“Thank you, my friend.” Shaw croons, and Charles shivers.

ERIK

Erik does put the children to bed. Lorna protests, as she usually does, and Pietro pesters him with questions about where he’s going and why they’re going to bed early and if they’re in trouble and what Erik’s doing, and Erik promptly shushes him.

Wanda is the only one who stays quiet, and after he sweeps back her hair from her face and kisses her forehead she pulls up her blankets to her chin and whispers, “Be safe.”

Erik’s heart aches. It’s not her job to worry about him.

“I will, my love. Don’t worry.” He murmurs to her, keeping his large hand on top of her head for a moment. His reassurance doesn’t seem to do wonders for whatever she’s feeling, but she burrows down into her cot and lets him leave, so it’s something. When Erik’s out under the now darkened sky he knows Wanda will be awake, waiting for him to come back. She was the oldest child (half an hour older than Pietro), so she felt she had to protect him. Erik wished he lived in a world where she didn’t feel that way.

He waits at the back of the tent for Charles, counting constellations until he hears footsteps in the grass. Charles has a very identifiable gait, made so by his cane, which is honestly very reassuring--Shaw had nothing to identify him in such a way. 

Charles is both shorter and younger than Erik, which makes him feel...safer. He smiles up at Erik with red lips and blue eyes, and holds out his hand for him to shake. 

“Charles Xavier. It’s an absolute pleasure.” He says, like this is normal. Erik grasps his hand firmly, rough skin against soft, feels a lopsided grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Erik.”

Charles lets him go and motions to the tent-- “And the children?”

Erik raises an eyebrow. He assumed Charles would already know their names, seeing as how he had already known his name.

“I don’t, actually. Didn’t look for them earlier.” Charles confirms for him, reading his thoughts. Erik reflexively tightens his shields around his mind in response, and Charles’ easy smile drops. “Sorry.”

It must be a habit of his, to so casually read people’s minds. It’s not the same here, where everything is watched. Erik presses his lips together and tries to level his breathing again. “Wanda and Pietro are the older twins, and Lorna is the young one.”

“They’re wonderful.” Charles murmurs, looking toward the walls of the tent like he can see through them. “And their gifts...so amazing. Lorna inherited yours, I see. And Wanda is already so talented! You must be proud.”

Erik, still startled that Charles just- knows things, like that, takes a second. He feels the collar around his neck more obviously than he had a second prior. “I’m...yes, I’m very proud of them.” His words hold an obvious undercurrent of guilt and pity for Lorna, who was cut off from her powers just as Erik was from his by virtue of being similar. He can tell that Charles can tell, and he knows that he feels for him just by the look in his eyes.

Charles’ gaze travels quickly down to his midsection and back up again. “And whoever the little one will turn out to be, I’m sure you’re excited.” He prompts, but this...this is different. Erik wouldn’t feel any kind of excitement or happiness until they were born--perhaps not even until after that.

Erik hesitates, settles his hand low on his stomach-- “We shall see.” He decides on saying.

Luckily, Charles is smart enough to drop the subject and not look further. 

They’re quiet for a minute.

Crickets make sounds in the grass and lightning bugs float around the camp.

Charles sighs. Erik is afraid of what he’s going to say.

“If you want to escape…” Charles starts, and Erik holds up a hand to stop him.

“No. I’m not taking any risks.”

“But I haven’t even--”

“No, Charles.” Erik says firmly.

He knows his mind is screaming that he should say yes, he needs to go, he needs to take the children and leave, but he is also seeing visions of dead bodies, dead bodies of children and of men with canes and with Shaw standing over them, raising the whip to strike Erik again, and so he says no. Nothing is sure, and if there is the smallest chance that any plan of Charles’ to get him out of Genosha will fail, he won’t risk it. Erik is not going to let any more of his children die. Even speaking to Charles alone is iffy.

Charles huffs, but relents.

“We’re leaving at noon tomorrow.” He says. Erik looks at him.

“And?”

“And, I would like to see you again before then.”

Now it is Erik’s turn to sigh-- “Shaw is always watching me. Tomorrow morning will be busy, I...I don’t know how you’d manage that.” He says, with a sad little laugh.

Charles looks resolute. “I’ll find a way.”

Erik doesn’t understand how Charles is so brave. He thinks he used to understand, long ago, but not anymore.

He doesn’t respond, and so he and Charles stand together and look at the stars, at the tents lit by lanterns, at the great war hall still making noise a ways away. Charles hears Raven’s mind looking for him, and swears quietly under his breath.

“What?” Erik asks him.

“My sister’s looking for me. I should probably…” He makes a vague motion towards the war hall, and Erik nods.

“Of course. Don’t let me keep you.” 

Charles replants his cane in the grass, looks down at his boots, and then back up to Erik. He moves closer to him but doesn’t touch him, thank god. “I want to help you. You can tell me how, next I see you, or not. But I know you are in pain. I know you’re suffering. I want to help.” He says, blue eyes bright and boring into Erik’s own.

Erik closes his eyes.  
Luckily, Charles does not wait for him to answer and ambles off back toward the war hall. Erik watches him go. 

For the first time in a while, he pokes his fingers underneath the suppression collar and tugs at it, feeling the sore skin underneath. It was only taken off to clean his neck when he was forcefully made unconscious by Emma.

One last look at the stars, and Erik retreats into his tent for the night. Shaw wouldn’t be joining him for a while.

The children are all asleep except Wanda. She watches Erik silently as he comes around to sit next to her cot, and leans his head on the hay-stuffed mattress. “Are you ok?” She whispers.

Erik nods, blinking tiredly. 

“The baby?” Wanda continues.

“Fine.” Erik murmurs. “We’re fine, my love. Sleep.”

Wanda tilts her head up to press her soft child lips against the crown of Erik’s head, and then snuggles into her warm blankets and furs, and sleeps.

Erik falls asleep curled up next to her, something alight in his mind that hadn’t been for many years.


	2. arabian

ERIK

Morning comes with a cold breeze and frost on lanterns. Erik wakes up before Shaw, before the children, and wanders out of their tent for a minute to watch the Westchesterians pack up. It’s not much of a job to be done, in its essence, since Genosha is only a day’s journey from Westchester, but seeing people milling about in the light of the new sun calms Erik’s mind. He was always a solitary person, who appreciated having time to himself, but no one would notice it now that the children and he were practically attached at the hip wherever they went.

It was obvious that tensions between Genoshans and Westchesterians were high. Erik hadn’t been paying attention to Shaw during the banquet last night, and then he had escaped so that he could speak to Charles, but it was obvious that all the meeting had done was make the two kingdoms despise each other even more--and they had Shaw’s intentional stirring of the pot to thank for it. The man always did love a good fight.

Erik must have lost track of time, because he’s suddenly jolted out of his reverie by an arm sliding around his waist and Shaw’s voice crooning into his ear- “What are you doing.”

Instead of flinching, like he used to do, Erik indulges Shaw and covers the Alpha’s hand on his side with one of his own. “Just watching.” He says quietly. “The baby woke me up.”

They didn’t, they were as quiet inside of him as they always were, but it was an excuse Shaw believed.

“Hm.” Erik can practically hear the smile curling up Shaw’s lips. “I think you should tend to the children, my boy.”

There is an obvious undercurrent of danger in Shaw’s tone. It was a demand, not a suggestion.

Erik doesn’t know what exactly Shaw’s threatening, but it can’t be good, so he detached himself from his alpha and retreats back into the tent. Much to his chagrin, Shaw joins him. As he gently rouses Lorna from her sleep and keeps an eye on the already awake and vibrating Pietro, Shaw watches. Didn’t he have any kind of kingly duty that he could attend to instead of playing a hawk and making the children scared?

Shaw stays for the maddening fifteen minutes it takes for the children to awaken and get dressed. He offers his hand to Erik when he makes to leave the tent with them in tow, and Erik, biting back a scowl, takes it. The children follow him like ducklings, and Wanda keeps a handful of his trousers in her grasp as they exit the tent. 

The camp is more lively, now, and Emma meets them outside. She never says anything to Erik, but she makes it very clear what she’s thinking to him specifically.

_Good morning._ She thinks to him, and Erik doesn’t dignify her with a response. He doesn’t think he’s had a truly good morning in a while. 

Shaw has a possessive grip on his hand that Erik’s hand sweats in as the two of them (plus Emma, Lorna, Wanda and Pietro) survey the Westchesterians. General Darkholme is easy to pick out of the crowd, with her blue skin, and where she is Charles usually isn’t far behind. If Erik still had his powers he’d just look for the metal-topped cane, but he can’t.

Charles, however, was definitely looking for Erik--or his mind, rather. He turns his head in the Genoshans’ direction and for a moment he and Erik make eye contact, but then Charles remembers that Shaw is with him and is not a man to be trifled with, so he turns away and goes back to speaking with Raven, who is speaking with their escort guards they had brought with them on the trip. Erik hopes Shaw didn’t notice.

The way Shaw takes his hand out of Erik’s and instead grasps his bicep says something quite contrary.

The Westchesterians’ horses are already hooked up to the carriage and standing around near hitching posts waiting for their riders; They were beautiful creatures, well-behaved and strong, and all dappled grey, silver, and white, unlike the Genoshans’ traditional dark horses. Erik’s father had taught him to ride when he was seven, the summer before he was killed, and it was a rare opportunity when he was allowed on a horse now. Genoshans practically lived on their horses when they weren’t camped out in any one place, and were renowned for having such an intimate understanding of these animals that they could outride any professional knight from any other kingdom easily. The skills his father had taught him had never gone away, but Erik always feared that they would. So much from his parents had already been forgotten, left behind with their bodies in the dirt.

Pietro had inherited Erik’s love of horses, but really he just liked racing any creature that was faster than your average human. He wasn’t allowed to run around much, on Erik’s request through Shaw (so that Pietro would listen and obey), but he was filled with so much energy that he couldn’t help vibrating in place sometimes to get it all out. Erik didn’t know if doing that hurt him, or made him physically uncomfortable, but Pietro had never complained--why he didn’t was unknown as well. Erik worried about him.

The young boy had been staring at the horses for the entire time he had been outside, and the longer the group of them were still, silent, and watchful, the more restless he got. One moment he was rocking on his heels back and forth, next to Erik, and the next he was just- gone.

The worst part was that Erik didn’t even notice he was gone until he heard one of the horses over by the Westchesterian carriage scream. There had been a breeze by his right side, and a rustle of the grass, and then a white horse had reared up on its hind legs and whinnied bloody murder for the entire camp to hear. All heads turned toward the horses, and Erik spotted Pietro by the hitching post zipping around the horse, trying to figure out how to get its lead rope off.

Without thinking twice, Erik wrenches his arm out of Shaw’s grip and sprints over to Pietro, picking him up while he’s distracted and pulling him quickly away from the terrified horse. Pietro wriggles in his grasp until he realizes it’s useless to resist, and goes limp and sulking while Erik scolds him in harsh tones.

“What were you _thinking,_ boy, you know you’re not supposed to go running off like that.” Erik grits out through his teeth, holding his son’s chin in his hand so that he could look him in the eyes. “Your father could have me beaten for that, or even have you killed-- you _know_ what he could do. You _know._ God’s sake, Pietro, what am I going to do with you…”

Pietro avoids his eyes, even with his head tilted up, and mutters, “I only did it ‘cause you wanted to get away…” And once Erik realizes what he means he sighs loudly, annoyed but fond, and presses Pietro’s head to his chest.

“Don’t do that again.” He mutters into Pietro’s silver hair. “I know you mean well, but don’t.”

Pietro sighs, and relents. The horse continues to shriek behind them, and Erik looks back at the tent to see where Lorna and Wanda were--they were gone, and at his glance come running toward him and Pietro, but Shaw is nowhere to be found.

Shaw hated horses, and Pietro was a very clever boy.

Erik finally puts Pietro down so that he can go about calming the horse--even if it wasn’t one of his own, he felt it was his responsibility to fix his son’s mistake--but when he turns around he sees Charles, murmuring softly to the poor creature and stroking its nose as its hooves nervously scuffed the ground.

It made sense--it was one of Charles’ horses. Still, it said something about a king who was willing to do a stableboy’s or a knight’s work without prompting. The stallion nudges Charles gently with its head, and Charles laughs, patting it on the cheek. Erik can’t stop staring.

Once the horse is adequately calm and the camp starts moving at its normal rate again, Charles huffs, picks up his cane from where he had leant it against a post, and approaches Erik with somewhat of a bashful smile.

“Impressive.” Erik offers him, and Charles’ smile gets wider. The children stare at him from next to and behind Erik, but not with fear.

“Thank you, my friend.” Charles replies brightly. “When I was a boy I used to spend all my time in the stables at home- I talked to the horses.”

Erik raises a skeptical eyebrow, and Charles continues- “Well, it wasn’t really _talking_ so much as it was me talking _at_ them, and sometimes trying to communicate with them through the mind.”

Wanda gasps quietly.

“Yes, it was quite an interesting little project!” Charles says with a conspiratorial wink to her. “Couldn’t get much through but emotions and concepts, but it was something. Oh, you needn’t apologize, Pietro, I know you meant well.”

Pietro starts, surprised that Charles knew he wanted to say sorry for making everyone worried. He’s also surprised that Charles knows his name, but of course Erik had told him that last night.

Erik, who was a little overwhelmed by all the talking and thought-reading, takes a second to say any more words of his own. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. It’s unbecoming of a king.”

Charles flaps his hand at him dismissively. “Oh, no, it was no trouble at all. Besides, we can’t have you going through any kind of stress or doing any hard labor in your condition, and it was my horse.”

Erik scoffs, lips turning up in a humorless smirk. No stress, indeed.

Still, he appreciates what Charles did. He can’t see Shaw doing anything that helpful or kind, ever. 

“Thank you.” He says, lost for words on every other front. The truth was that Erik had been just slightly wary of the spooked horse and how violent it could get, and he didn’t want to endanger himself or the baby.

If Charles sees that in his mind, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, what he says is this:

_I would like to keep in touch with you._

_You shouldn’t,_ Erik insists. _Shaw will know and he won’t be happy._

_You don’t know that for certain._

_I don’t, but I’ve known him for the majority of my life, Charles, and I know what he is capable of._

Charles adjusts his posture and looks into Erik’s eyes, expression serious. _I can’t leave you here with him._

_I’m flattered._ Erik thinks, pushing back waves of hope and desperation and misery that threaten to overwhelm him. _But I’ll manage. I always have._

“But managing isn’t _enough.”_ Charles insists, out loud, and the children look confusedly from him to Erik and back again. Erik narrows his eyes.

“Listen to me.” He says, voice low. “I know Shaw knows something is off. I can feel it. Your...lust, infatuation, or whatever it is you have with me will get me hurt. It will hurt my children. Under no circumstances will I allow that.”

Charles’ gaze softens, and he looks down at the children for a moment before going back up to Erik. Erik knows he makes a good point- Charles knows Shaw is cruel. 

It is so obvious, though, that Charles cares for him, and Erik wonders however he will cope when he has to leave for Westchester. Charles is a man who feels deeply, wholly, and Erik feels sorry that he’s the one Charles has decided to care for.

Charles takes a slow breath in, and then out. Shifts his cane from one hand to the other. Erik knows he’s struggling with himself very hard.

“I would like to see you again, someday.” Charles says softly. Erik gives him a pitying look.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, the chances of that are slim.”

Charles, as determined as ever, looks defiant. “There’s still a chance.”

Erik doesn’t know what to say to that.

Charles seems to take it as a sign he’s won the argument, or whatever the conversation they were having was, and makes a satisfied little huff before he gives Erik and the children a bright smile and bows to them before leaving for the carriage. Erik looks on, mystified.

Pietro giggles and covers it under his hand.

When the Westchesterian company is saddled up and ready to leave, Erik watches as Shaw and Charles recite the necessary pleasantries to each other and crush each other’s hands in a borderline destructive grip. The Genoshans stand behind Shaw, and the Westchesterians stand behind Charles, two sides of a war that may never end. Genoshan warriors hold weapons that cleaved visible scars on Westchesterian skin.

Charles catches Erik’s eye again before he steps into the carriage, General Darkholme following close behind. Erik nods to him, minutely, and Charles smiles.

_Farewell, my friend._

Erik feels his mouth twitch, threatening to smile, and hides it by dropping his head down to look at the grass. It wasn’t as safe as last night, to communicate with him.

As much as he doesn’t want Charles to see him again, purely for the safety of his children, he desires it. He hopes for it. Talking to Charles gave him something that he hadn’t had...possibly ever. The satisfaction of speaking to another adult as an equal, with respect, not just being pitied or shunned or loathed by them. Speaking to Charles made Erik feel almost normal.

He almost doesn’t notice the glare Shaw shoots him as he watches the Westchesterian company take their leave. Almost.

CHARLES

Charles spends almost the entire ride back to Westchester daydreaming out the window of the carriage while Raven sleeps, feet propped up next to him in his seat. If he got one thing from the entire trip that really meant anything to him, it was his interactions with Erik, and the hostile omega had consumed his thoughts ever since the carriage had set off north. The haunted look in his eyes and the hollow tone of his voice when warning him about Shaw wasn’t leaving Charles’ mind any time soon, and Charles wanted more than anything to _help_ him and his children, but as much as he didn’t like to admit it Erik was right. Shaw was terrifying, paranoid, and powerful. His gift held immense destructive capability within it and he had so many layers of protection around him at all times (and by extension around Erik) that Charles didn’t even know where to start when it came to getting rid of him.

It was incredibly infuriating, to not know what to do. Charles didn’t want to sit idly by and twiddle his thumbs in his kingdom while Erik and his children could be getting hurt by Shaw’s hand, in Erik’s mind he had seen the shadow of a whip and blood on the grass and didn’t dare to look further, but he knew the omega held a lot of suffering in his heart. It was amazing how level-headed and sturdy he appeared to be on the outside, when inside he was so broken. 

Charles admired him.

Raven groggily blinks awake after a while, watches her brother for a minute, and then groans.

“What?” Charles asks, indignant.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you.” Charles gives her a look. “Shaw’s omega.”

Seen right through, as always. Curse Raven’s uncanny ability to parse out exactly how Charles is feeling at any given moment.

“Maybe.” He draws out the M, looking back out the window. “I’m worried about him.”

Raven sighs. “I know. It’s obvious to everybody that Shaw’s got a tight grip on him, but I bet he’ll be okay. He looks healthy, and he’s well-spoken- you don’t need to obsess, Charles.”

She says that, but Charles knows more about Erik than she does. “I know he wants to leave. Shaw’s killing him, very slowly, his mind was filled with such pain…” He rubs his forehead with his hand, one thumb on his temple.

Raven sits up and stretches her back before shooting Charles a tense look. “I hope you’re not thinking of smuggling him into Westchester.” She warns.

Charles half-smiles, huffing a wry kind of laugh. “Of course not. I’m thinking of smuggling him _and_ his children into Westchester.”

He can see his sister roll her eyes out of the corner of his vision, and turns on her, frustrated. “Don’t tell me you actually want him to stay there!”

“No, no, I--”

“He’s in _agony,_ Raven, Shaw’s had him since he was a boy and has only used him to satisfy his carnal desires and bear his children--I can’t even imagine what that could do to someone in the long run. He was so focused on not communicating any hope of leaving to me, but it was seeping through the cracks in his mind so forcefully that it’s all I can think about! He’s developed _rock-solid_ mental shields to protect his mind because Shaw has another telepath he uses to _monitor_ him! It’s inhumane, Raven, I can’t--”

Raven stops him with a hand on his shoulder, and Charles realizes his voice has been getting progressively louder and louder as he went on. He settles back in his seat, gripping the handle of his cane tight in white-knuckled hands, and bites his lip to try and keep himself from saying anything more. Raven is bent over toward him, eyes wide.

“...You okay?” She asks timidly.

Charles lets out a breath, and doesn’t answer her for a while. His eyes are steely.

“...I think I would like to kill Shaw soon.”

Raven presses her lips together. She knows what he’s asking.

“I’ll prepare the war hall for a meeting when we get back.” She murmurs, serious.

Charles nods almost imperceptibly. For some reason, he’s relieved. Shaw’s been allowed to continue on like this for too long while Charles has always had the manpower and ability to topple his rule. It was time to end it for good.

ERIK

After the Westchesterian company leaves, the rest of the day proceeds as normal. Erik is left relatively alone with the children, although he knows that Shaw has someone watching him, and he gets to let his mind relax for a scant amount of time. He sits in the tent with Wanda in his lap, lorna tucked up against his side, and Pietro in front of him trying to stack rocks in a tower, and tells them stories to pass the time. There are ancient Genoshan tales that everyone in the kingdom knows, but the children have heard those so many times they could recite them word for word, so Erik makes up his own.

Today he has a new story: A tale of two kings, living on opposite sides of a great mountain range, who were destined for each other but cannot show their love due to the great war between their empires. Erik tries to make it as long as he can, adding in new characters and new enemies the two kings have to conquer to be with each other, and takes suggestions from the children on where the story should go. Of course, this tale ends with a happy ending, and the children are enraptured. Pietro longs for a horse and to be a knight, and Wanda wants to do magic like a sorceress when she grows up. Lorna had fallen asleep against Erik halfway through, his soft voice lulling her into slumber late in the afternoon.

While Lorna snoozes and Pietro becomes occupied with his little sculpture, Wanda tilts her head up to look her birth father in the eye. 

Erik meets her scarlet gaze (he never knew where her striking eye color came from--perhaps it was part of her gift). “What is it, my love?”

Wanda is quiet for a moment before she speaks. “Are you tired?”

Erik shakes his head. “No. Why do you ask?”

Wanda raises her little hand and rests the tip of her index finger on his stomach. “She’s awake. She wants to play.”

Erik’s gaze turns incredulous when he realizes what Wanda’s said. “She?”

She nods, raising her hand to scratch under her nose. “I can tell.”

He has to blink back tears before he says anything else, drawing Wanda closer to him in his arms while being careful not to disturb Lorna. She seems confused as he does so, like the fact that the baby was a girl was common news.

“I love you, sweetheart.” Erik murmurs into her hair. 

A little confused, she chirps “I love you too!” Right back at him, and Erik laughs tearfully. It was the little things that made him happy.

Later that evening, while Erik and the children were still in the tent, Shaw came in to see them at a time when he was usually with his generals and Emma. Immediately, it puts Erik on edge. Shaw smiles at him without showing his teeth and crooks his index finger toward himself, beckoning.

“Could I speak to you outside for a moment, darling?” He purrs, and Erik knows something is very wrong. Wanda and Pietro watch him closely as he stands and follows Shaw outside, urging them to stay put.

Shaw leads him outside and they meander around the tents, seemingly headed toward the stables where the horses stood sleeping upright. Erik stays just behind Shaw the whole time, but Shaw doesn’t seem to mind it--that is, until they’re right up against the back wall of the stable and Shaw grabs Erik by the collar of his tunic and slams him against it, pinning him there with an arm across the chest.

“Listen to me, boy.” Shaw hisses in Erik’s ear. “I know that you and the king were talking.”

Erik screws his eyes shut, flattening himself against the stable wall as much as he can so as to disappear into it. He knew Shaw would find out somehow, he knew it. This is what he warned Charles about.

“I don’t take kindly to treason, Erik.” Shaw says in hushed tones. “You’re mine, not his, and you will never be his. Understand?”

Erik nods tersely. He doesn’t make a sound.

“Good.” Shaw smiles, but his hand doesn’t loosen up. Erik jolts when he feels a cold palm slide up under his tunic and rest on his belly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop thinking about running off with him. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to the little one because of your stupidity, would you?”

“No.” Erik chokes out.

“That’s a good boy.” Shaw laughs. “I better not see any sign of him around for the foreseeable future or there will be consequences. No gifts, no thoughts, no correspondence.”

“I understand.”

“You understand…?”

“I understand, alpha.”

And then Shaw takes his hands off of Erik and ruffles his hair good-naturedly, and pats him firmly on the shoulder. All Erik can think about is keeping his children safe, keeping _her_ safe. 

“I’m glad we could have this little chat.” Shaw says to him, tone light and nonchalant, and Erik droops from the stable wall, curling a hand around his stomach. “What’s the matter?”

If Erik wasn’t powerless, terrified and pregnant, he would have killed Shaw right then and there. _What was the matter._

“Nothing, alpha.” He mutters. “May I return to the tent?”

Shaw motions that way, an easy smile on his face. “Of course.”

Erik stumbles back to the tent and collapses next to his and Shaw’s bed, and the children swarm around him. He holds them in his arms and lets tears run down his face in silence, and tries not to make too much noise.

He remembers Anya.

Erik had been naïve to think that after Lorna, no more children he’d bear would be in danger. Shaw would kill again; he always would. And now she, the little girl inside of him, was in danger. Because he dared enough to hope that one day, he’d be free. 

How foolish of him to hope.

“Papa?” Lorna whispers to him. “What happened?”

Erik swallows back more tears and kisses his daughter’s head. “Nothing, my love. Just a small argument.”

He doubts Lorna will believe him, but she doesn’t ask anything more, which he’s thankful for.

After this, Erik knows that Emma will be watching his thoughts closely to look for any sign of ‘treason’. He hated having that woman inside of his mind, she was nothing like Charles’ warmth and caution, and compared to him her voice in his head was like a cold winter chill instead of a summer breeze.

His shields need to be stronger. He needs to be stronger. Erik decides he is going to block her out of his thoughts no matter how long it takes.

The next few months pass without much fanfare, compared to the whirlwind of activity Westchester brought with it. Autumn turns into winter, and Lorna is excited that she and her little sister will have similar birthdays. Shaw is still as overbearing as usual, but Erik can handle that--what he has to get used to is Emma’s constant presence. In the late hours of the night and early morning, he has slowly been building up his shields so that she can’t get through to him, turning them from stone to steel, and lets himself daydream about Charles again.

Lorna has never had to wait for a younger sibling before--Wanda and Pietro have, so they know how to deal with Erik through the pregnancy, but Lorna is curious and asks a lot of questions. Erik tries not to let her down too bad when he doesn’t know the answers.

The baby, whoever she will turn out to be, is already showing her personality in the womb. Erik doesn’t get a lot of sleep because she likes to kick him during the night, and whenever someone touches his stomach she follows the warmth and presses from the inside against their hand. Erik loves her.

He wonders what it would be like to live in Westchester. It was a sprawling kingdom, made of stone buildings and fortresses, and the people there were strict and traditional in their own uptight way. It was different from everything Erik knew, but in a good way. He wished he was able to travel.

He imagines Charles welcoming him and the children there, showing them the sights around the kingdom and taking off his and Lorna’s collars. He’d feel the metal in the earth call to him again, then, and he’d make Charles sculptures and jewelry and weapons and would feel at home in his own body again. He’d teach Lorna to master her own skills over metal and would be immensely proud of her when she forms plate steel into a ball for the first time, when she lifts a carriage by its metal wheels, when she kills her first enemy with sharpened titanium that floats next to her head. Pietro would have room to run, to play, to make friends, and Wanda would have teachers who would help her become the sorceress she wanted to be, and perhaps Charles would be there when Erik’s youngest daughter manifested her gift. Erik would finally let himself be open with Charles, and they’d get to know each other, and perhaps they’d become close, so close that one day their hands would touch and their lips would follow and then, and then…

And then Erik stops thinking about silly, unrealistic fantasies, and listens to Shaw when he wants to have sex or when he wants him to take the children out of his sight because he can’t stand their whining and crying when they do. He is an obedient omega, but under the surface and under his shields he hopes.

Just after Lorna’s birthday passes, Erik goes into labor.

Shaw usually stays away from the birthing tent until the baby is actually born, fortunately for Erik, and because the children aren’t allowed in either he spends the majority of the labor in peace and quiet, attended to only by a midwife who speaks to him little.

At this point, he knows how it goes, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. The contractions grip him like a vice, every one worse than the last, and the slow burn that follows the baby crowning is like fire. Erik grits his teeth, bites back screams, and soldiers through it.

After much suffering and agony, the baby is out and in the world, and Erik gets to hold her first before Shaw intrudes on them. She’s tiny and red and very irate at being expelled from the womb without her consent, but Erik is ecstatic to finally see her and hold her. He calms her down quickly, and she nestles into his warm skin and listens to his heartbeat. Erik cups her head in his palm and very gently strokes her scalp as he rests and waits for Shaw.

Erik names his newborn daughter Nina.

After a while, Shaw does enter the tent, but as always he seems mildly disinterested. Erik’s heart rate jumps up as Shaw takes Nina from his arms and holds her, studying her. He hoped she was good enough--he hoped he had been good enough to keep her.

An agonizing minute passes, and Shaw makes a sound of amusement and casually passes her back to Erik. “Another girl. Interesting.” He hums, and even though it was just three words it doesn’t make Erik feel any better about how safe Nina will be. He knows she was the one he was talking about when he mentioned ‘consequences’ for communicating with Charles.

Shaw, not one for sentimentality or intimacy, leaves the tent to announce the birth of another heiress to the kingdom. The children are let in by the midwife soon after, and they crowd around the head of the cot Erik is on to look at their little sister.

“She looks just like Lorna did…” Wanda says dreamily, trailing her finger through the wisps of hair that cover Nina’s head.

Lorna herself is very quiet. “She’s so small.” She whispers to Erik. 

He chuckles-- “You were once this small too.”

He tells them their sister’s name is Nina, and just as he did with Wanda and Pietro when Lorna was born he tells them to protect her, look out for her, and love her. The children all stay in reverent silence, captivated by the tiny thing laying on their birth father’s chest.

Erik is scared for Nina, for what Shaw might do to her, but he loves her so much that for the moment it drowns out any worries he might have for her future. No doubt she’ll be amazing--all of his children were. 

For the rest of that night, Shaw doesn’t disturb them again, and Erik sleeps peacefully, dreamlessly, surrounded by his family.

CHARLES

After a while of stewing in his castle and thinking much too hard and far too much about Erik, Charles makes a very stupid decision.

“I’m writing him a letter.” He tells Raven, and she looks at him like he’s the most dim-witted idiot to ever walk the earth. 

“Why?”

“I would like to know how he is.” Charles insists. “And wipe that look off of your face, I know what I’m doing.”

Raven huffs and drops her upper half back onto Charles’ bed, where she had been bothering him for a while prior. “Sure you do. And Shaw is pleasant to be around.”

Charles knows that attempting to write to Erik is a very bad idea, he knows this, but he can’t stand being away from him for so long without knowing if he was alright or not. He was worried about him- it was simple.

“I do. I don’t think even Shaw would intrude on mail specified from a king to be delivered specifically to Erik.”

Raven makes a face. “I don’t know, Charles, Shaw didn’t seem like the type to especially care about tradition.”

“I have to try.”

“Your bleeding heart’s going to get someone killed someday, you know that?”

His sister can’t see it, but Charles rolls his eyes hard. “Well, let’s hope today will not be that day. I’m writing the letter, Raven, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

She raises her hands in surrender. “Just be careful not to start another war when nobody’s ready for it.”

Charles doesn’t say anything, and as he pens his letter on thick parchment he worries about if Erik will actually get to read it or not. Unfortunately, Raven was right--Shaw didn’t care about tradition. 

He had to try, though, he had to. He thought about Erik and his children too much to not try and talk to him again. He must have had the baby now, at any rate, so that was an excuse to see how he was doing. Charles needed to know if Erik and his family were unhurt and healthy.

He wrote the letter, sealed it with wax, and handed it off to a messenger who rode off on their steed towards Genosha. Whatever reply he got, if there was any, he hoped would be satisfying. He would just have to wait for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one got a bit longer than i anticipated! please tell me what you think as always :]


	3. morgan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for a depiction of child death in erik's half of the chapter. this is it for that trigger, i promise!

ERIK

When Nina is a few weeks old, and her eyes are opening and she’s grabbing anything that’s put in front of her, a messenger arrives in Genosha.

Erik hears this from inside the tent where he is sitting with the children, hears a crowd murmuring and the distant thumping of horse hooves on the packed dirt ground. Genosha communicated with other kingdoms on a fairly regular schedule, as kingdoms tended to do, and this happened every time someone showed up with mail--a crowd gathered and names were called as letters and documents were passed out from friends, family, partners. Genosha was an empire of travelers, of vagabonds. More Genoshans were foreign-born than not.

Pietro is sticking his head out of the tent flaps to watch. Wanda pushes him aside and pokes her head out below his. Erik watches them, amused. “Anything interesting?”

“Um…”

Wanda and Pietro suddenly scurry away from the entrance to the tent and slide to sit next to Erik again, who gives them both a skeptical look. Nina babbles at them curiously in Erik’s arms.

“What?” He asks.

“There was only one letter.” Pietro whispers, and before Erik can question him any more Shaw and Emma enter the tent.

Normally Erik would quiet down and adopt an expression of quiet indifference while Shaw spoke at him about the day or week’s accomplishments, or at his generals about something equally shallow, or told him to do something, but this Shaw is white with rage and clenching a piece of parchment in his fist and all Erik can feel is fear.

It was almost as if waves of energy were being released from Shaw with every step he took into the tent, as he stared down at Erik like he was nothing but an ant beneath someone’s shoe, or a leaf that had fallen stiff and crinkly from a tree. Erik hated feeling lower than Shaw and preferred to at least be standing when he spoke to him, but he was frozen in his spot.

Shaw holds up the paper in his hand and shakes it, lips curling up in the tightest, most terrifying smile Erik has ever seen. This was not normal anger from Shaw.

“Look what you have received, Erik.” Shaw hisses, still smiling. Erik says nothing, and Shaw throws the paper down onto the carpeted floor in front of him. Slowly, Erik detaches one of his hands from Nina and picks it up to read. 

Despite its crumpling, the ink hasn’t smudged, and a blue wax seal is stuck to the top of the paper. There is an X in the center of the emblem--Erik wracks his brain for whom the seal belongs to, and then it clicked.

Xavier.

Oh no.

As Erik reads word after word of the handwritten letter, eloquently-worded and gracefully written, he feels his heart drop further and further into his stomach and his hands start to shake.

_Dear Prince Erik of Genosha,_ it starts. Erik hadn’t been a prince for thirty years.

_Pardon me for forgoing all proper manners and writing to you directly instead of through a courier or someone similar, but I had to ensure this letter would get to you and only you._

Charles knew he had no such thing as a courier, or an advisor. He had to have known that nothing addressed to him would not go through Shaw. Right?

_Ever since our meeting at the Autumn Truce Banquet, I have found my thoughts filled with wonders and worries for your being, as well as your childrens’. The winter has been harsh, even in Westchester, and since I, with my most privileged upbringing, have never had to sleep in a tent I couldn’t help but hope that you and your family are safe and healthy._

_Forgive me if I am wrong, but if you have had your youngest child by now, then let me offer you my most sincere congratulations. Their mind was so vibrant and delightful when I last sensed it, and I hope they bring you much happiness and good fortune._

_If you would like to know, the horse Pietro startled, Nyx, is the one I am having this letter arrive on. I thought your son might be amused to see him again._

_I do not know if you have the means to write me back, but I assume you do as I have gotten letters from Genosha before. If you can, I would love to hear from you; if you cannot, I hold nothing against you for it. You must be busy._

_Send my love to your children._

_Yours honorably,_

_Charles Francis Xavier R, Holy Kingdom of Westchester_

Erik is gripping the letter almost as hard as Shaw was when he has read the thing in its entirety. Charles was being so kind, so casual and nonchalant, and it made him so _confused_ because how could he have thought sending him _anything_ was a good idea? Charles knew his mind better than anyone else in the kingdom did, surely, he would know that nothing of his was truly capable of being private.

What was it? Selfishness, self-centeredness, forgetfulness? Was he really that...lovestruck? Had it made him stupid?

Shaw’s words from the past echo in Erik’s mind. No gifts, no thoughts, no correspondence. This was the definition of maybe all three of those at the same time.

Erik doesn’t dare look up at Shaw again, for fear of his wrath, but it doesn’t do anything--Shaw snatches the paper out of his hand and leaves him shaking. Erik keeps his eyes down as he hears the paper get ripped and sees pieces of it flutter down to the ground, Charles’ graceful script destroyed. He has no idea what to say, what to do, what to think.

“What did I tell you.” Shaw murmurs. Erik lifts his head up to meet his old, dangerous eyes.

_“What did I tell you!”_ Shaw says again, this time raising his voice louder than Erik’s ever heard it. The children cower and hide behind him, and he clutches Nina tighter to his chest. He knows what Shaw said, the problem was he had _no_ idea Charles would do this. It felt almost like betrayal.

He tries to say as much: “I didn’t know--”

“Excuses.”

Erik wants to scream. It wasn’t an excuse, it was the _truth._

“I thought you had learned since last time, boy. You know what being disloyal will reap. You know the risks, I’m sure.” Shaw says, disappointed,

Last time. Erik doesn’t know what last time meant until he does, and he blanches.

Shaw shakes his head-- “But I can’t let this go. You’ve betrayed me and you’ve betrayed your kingdom, Erik. It seems we still have some things to learn.”

And then Shaw leans down, while Erik is paralyzed with fear, and plucks Nina from his arms.

_“NO!”_ Erik shouts, but it’s already too late. Shaw is already turning around, and flanked by Emma, exits the tent. Erik springs up to his feet and charges Shaw, but he’s blocked by solid diamond and Emma’s nonplussed expression. He struggles against her as hard as he can, trying to use his leverage as a taller, heavier man than she was to get past her, but in her diamond form she was unmovable. He wasn’t leaving the tent until Shaw willed it.

“It is time for a demonstration,” Shaw announces to the camp, which slowly starts to congregate around him. “Of what happens when one commits treason against our great kingdom.”

Erik cries out from behind Emma, all muscles clenched and eyes fixed painfully upon Nina, who is snuffling discontentedly in Shaw’s arms. All he can see is Nina.

“I told you there would be consequences, Erik.” Shaw says, looking much less furious now that he had his omega obedient and scared. “I don’t want to do this.”

_Yes you do,_ Erik thinks with pained vitriol, _I bet you’ve been waiting for a reason to do it._

Instead of saying anything like that, he clenches his fists and keeps watching. He feels one of the other children (he doesn’t know who) grab his pant leg, and pulls them off, shooing them back into the tent. He didn’t want them to look.

Emma places a hand on the center of his chest so he doesn’t think about trying to get past her again, and he bares sharp teeth at her. She smirks at him and looks back at Shaw.

Shaw has a single finger raised in the air directly above Nina’s chest.

This isn’t how he did it last time. This isn’t what happened to Anya. Everything inside of Erik is desperate for her, but there is nothing he can do except watch. The collar chokes him and Emma blocks him and Shaw is so powerful, so creative with his gift.

There doesn’t have to be a mess. Shaw doesn’t like messes.

“No,” Erik gasps, and Shaw meets his eye. “Please.”

Shaw shrugs like he’s disappointed, like he has no other choice, and jabs his finger down directly into Nina’s sternum. His finger wavers with invisible waves of energy and it enters her tiny body like ripples in a lake.

Nina jerks, shudders, and her limbs go rigid for a moment before going completely limp. No screaming, no blood, no mess. No show.

Just a death.

Erik screams.

Emma steps away from the entrance to the tent, and Erik staggers out, legs moving of their own accord, towards Shaw and towards Nina.

Shaw still has that _infuriating_ look on his face, something like pity, and with a sigh he hands the body to Erik. He doesn’t even _hand_ it to him, really, he just- drops it.

Erik collapses to his knees in the grass and cradles his dead daughter to his chest and wails. 

“No. Nina, _Nina,_ please--”

There is no blood this time, not like with Anya--Shaw must have supposed that he wouldn’t want to kill a baby the same way he’d kill a toddler. And that was the thing, too, Nina was still just so new to the world, barely cognizant of anything around her but her father and her siblings, still with so much to learn and see and hear and experience. Anya could speak, she could walk. She knew Erik loved her until the end. Nina had barely just started to imprint on the world when her life was ended.

All for the sake of a letter.

The distant murmuring of the crowd that had gathered is nothing to Erik. Neither are the children’s panicked voices from the tent. Nothing is anything to him except his baby. She is quickly growing cold in his arms and her eyes are closed, arms and legs unmoving. He places her head in the crook of his neck and holds it steady with one hand, her backside with his other, and tries to pretend she’s just asleep.

She’s so cold, though. So cold and not moving.

Tears have been sliding down his cheeks for a while now, and it is hard for Erik to breathe. Everything hurts. His heart feels like it’s been ripped out of his chest--he thinks he’d prefer it to this.

With shaking fingers he wipes his own tears from Nina’s face, and whimpers into her soft hair. Everything that she was, all her unconditional love and joy that she had shown him, all gone. She had slept under Erik’s heart for nine months, he had given his blood and his body and his soul to her, and her life ends three weeks after she enters the world.

Erik is completely swallowed in grief. He sobs openly on her, bent over in the grass, giant heaving gasps that rattle him whenever they pass in and out of his throat. He thinks he hears someone else crying around him but the ringing in his ears overwhelms it. 

Someone approaches him and he sees a glove-covered hand enter his vision. “The body needs to be buried.”

Erik snaps back as if the person had insulted him, and growls. 

“Give her here.” The stranger says again, and he stumbles to his feet, as far away as he can manage.

“She is my love,” Erik says through gritted teeth and tears. “She is my daughter. Why can’t I carry her?”

“She needs to be buried.” The stranger says again, attempting to guide Erik to the camp’s burial site with a hand on the back that he quickly jerks out of. “Let me take her for you.” 

He’s not stupid. He knows where she will be put in the ground. “No!” He cries, holding Nina away from them. “Don’t take her from me. Please, don’t take her. She’s my daughter.”

Out of pity, or perhaps out of genuine care, the stranger lets him hold Nina all the way to the camp’s current graveyard at the foot of a large hill, formerly covered with wildflowers but now just beginning to sprout again after winter. Several holes have been pre-dug, all of them much too large.

Warriors and craftsmen and civilians alike watch Erik as he approaches the gravesite, and when he reaches the edge of the first hole he falls again to his knees. His grip on Nina is so tight his arms have to be gently pried off of her so that the gravediggers can place her in the ground, and she looks so infinitesimally smaller in the dirt, so much more fragile and delicate. It hadn’t taken much to kill her.

Erik slumps sideways onto the grass before they’re done burying her.

In his dreams, delirious with sadness, people visit him.

Sometimes Anya jumps into his arms and tugs at his short beard, teasing him about how she liked him better when he wasn’t scratchy around the chin.

Sometimes it’s Charles, holding his hands and saying sweet, horrible words to him without knowing of their influence on his life.

Sometimes--and these are the worst times--his mother looks at him with melancholy in her eyes and says _oh, my beautiful boy, I never wanted this for you._

 _Mama,_ Erik sobs into her bosom as she holds him, _I miss you. I can’t go on like this. What am I going to do?_

His mother strokes his hair just like he did Nina and gazes into his eyes, and says _You have to live for your children._

At some point, he wakes up in a bed.

Not _his_ bed, not the one he and Shaw shared, but in a different bed in a different tent. The children (The still living ones) sit propped up against its side, silent and staring at him.

After he blinks his eyes open a few times he remembers what had transpired last time he was in the waking world, and silent tears begin to pour down his cheeks again. Lorna is the first one to get up and hug him around the neck, draping herself over him, and Erik weakly grasps onto her as he cries. Pietro and Wanda follow.

He hoped they didn’t see Nina die, but he knows that they know she’s dead. There was no way they couldn’t.

They sit like that for a while. Pietro climbs up into bed next to Erik, Lorna stays laid over him, and Wanda sits next to his head and leans her own head next to him on the pillow. No one speaks, no one moves, and the tent is silent save for the sound of Erik’s grief.

After an eternity, Erik finds the will to speak actual words. His voice is quiet and broken when he asks the children “Where are we?”

“Father moved us.” Wanda says quietly. “He doesn’t want to be around us for now.”

Erik remembers--Shaw didn’t want to be around him after Anya died, either. 

At least he would be alone.

The next week Erik and the children spend in mourning. The children did know that Nina was no longer with them, but they did not know how, nor why, nor did they see it happen. For this Erik is thankful. He and he alone should live with the memory of watching his children die, for he was not strong enough to protect them.

He tries to resume his normal duties as a parent, but it’s hard. He spaces out easily and gets lost in his thoughts, he cries for no reason, he stops what he’s doing and stares into space for minutes at a time.

Erik sleeps. He sleeps quite a lot.

The children are worried about him, but there’s nothing he can do. They were not there when he was still grieving Anya.

All he feels is nothingness for seven days, and when he doesn’t feel nothingness he feels soul-crushing misery. Erik feels horrible for subjecting his children (his remaining children) to the collateral damage from Nina’s death, but he also fears he wouldn’t survive the week without them. They are all the good he has left to hold on to.

After the nothingness disappears, it is replaced with blindingly-hot rage.

Erik vows--he _more_ than vows, he swears to the heavens and to hell and on his parents’ graves and his childrens’ graves that he _will_ kill Shaw someday. Even if he has to raze the world to bring about his end, he will do it. He will fill Shaw’s head with liquid metal and sever his brainstem. He will smother his nose and mouth and ears and eyes with metal until he chokes on it. He will shove metal down his throat until he’s filled with it like a puppet. He will sever all of Shaw’s limbs and his head and feed them to wolves.

And maybe, after he kills Shaw, he will leave Genosha forever. Erik will take his children and head for greener pastures, for a place where he can live on his own terms and use his powers and be in control of his own life. He will head for a place where his children can grow up safe and happy. He just wants them to be safe and happy.

His mind goes back to the collar on his neck. It was enchanted so that it suppressed his powers, and was locked at the back of the head, but every lock had a key. Every lock had a key. If Erik was going to escape--if he was going to kill Shaw, he would need to get his and Lorna’s collars off. The vague outline of a plan forms in the back of his mind.

One day, Erik slams his fist on the chest sitting at the foot of the bed and wags his finger at the twins, who are playing quietly in a corner of the tent.

“You need to learn how to ride a horse.”

CHARLES

After a week of patiently waiting for anything from Genosha, Charles gets worried and hates himself for getting worried. He said it in his letter--it was perfectly fine if for some reason Erik couldn’t write him back, and would not assume anything to return in the first place.

And yet, here he was. Waiting. Worried. Wondering.

Charles thinks quite often about Erik and his children, about Shaw and Genosha. It had been a while since Autumn, when they had met...surely, Erik would have birthed Shaw his newest heir by now. He wrote this in his letter too: he must be busy. He must be. Charles refused to entertain the idea that Erik was being harmed in any way, although he knew it was a grim possibility.

Maybe the messenger got lost. He dwells on that for a while until Raven reminds him that the messenger _did_ come back, they came back right on schedule, Charles just hadn’t seen hide nor tail of them. She said they looked a mite shaken up, but that was to be expected for any Westchesterian visiting a warrior kingdom for the first time, surely.

Charles continues to try and make up excuses for Erik’s silence. Many of them he doesn’t like to think about.

At the end of that week, Charles starts to feel guilty. Perhaps sending the letter was a bad idea after all. Perhaps Shaw had in fact forgone any form of propriety and read it even though it was not addressed to him. Perhaps Charles’ innocent words had gotten Erik hurt.

When he turns up for breakfast with Raven one morning, bags under his eyes and stumbling as he walked from lack of sleep, his sister sighs and tries to make a deal with him.

He looks at her over his tea, confused and ruffled-- “What?”

“A deal, Charles. Because I _told_ you writing to the omega was a bad idea.”

“Erik, Raven, his name is Erik.” Charles mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can you close the curtains, please.”

Raven rolls her eyes and gets up to close the curtains in the sitting room.

Charles toys with the handle of his teacup absentmindedly and gives his sister a half-hearted glare. “What’s your deal?”

She leans over their little table towards him like she means to tell him a secret. “Okay. So, let’s say I take a horse and wagon and take the long route from the northern hills around the back of the Genoshan camp. Takes about two and a half days. I disguise myself as a merchant, or a vagabond, or whatever--and I stop and ask where the nearest hostel or tavern is. While I’m in the camp, I look for Shaw’s--Erik. I look for Erik.”

Charles raises his eyebrows.

“And if I see him, I tell you what I saw when I come back. Simple.”

He has to admit, it’s a good deal. But… “But what’s the deal part, what--what do I do for you in return?”

Raven smirks and claps him on the shoulder. “You, dear brother of mine, drink some of that heavy herbal tea Hank likes so much and get some goddamn sleep.”

Charles exhales a heavy breath out, and tilts his eyes down to the floor next to the table as if he is considering it. In actuality, it doesn’t take long for him to decide.

“Deal.” He says, unhooking his index finger from his teacup handle to hold his hand out to Raven. She shakes it enthusiastically, and drains the rest of her mug of coffee.

“I’ll head out tonight. Got nothing else to do these days, and I’ll put Scott in charge as acting general while I’m gone.”

Charles raises his two fingers to his forehead and salutes her. “Godspeed, my dear. Godspeed.”

That night, as promised, Raven takes the darkest horse they have and hooks her up to a wagon, and Charles watches her skin ripple from smooth blue to aged tan. She takes the appearance of an elderly man with freckles and liver spots and wrinkles, and as usual weathers through Charles’ fussing over her safety.

“I’ll be fine,” She insists, winking at him with yellow eyes that turn blue soon after. “It’s just a couple days.”

It was only a couple days, but she was venturing into Genoshan territory alone, which was risky for any Westchesterian no matter who they were. If Shaw or his warriors figured out who she was, it wouldn’t spell any good news for them. After thinking about it, Charles realizes it wouldn’t spell any good news for Erik either.

He watches the horse and wagon trot out of the palace gates, out of the wall surrounding the city, and into the plains beyond. She should arrive in Genosha by morning tomorrow, she had told Charles, and had reprimanded him when he said he’d be up all night waiting for her. As per Raven’s wishes, Charles borrows Hank’s favorite tea blend and thoroughly knocks himself out in his bed by nine o’ clock in the evening. 

He sleeps dreamlessly, but wakes up distressed.

For the entire two days after Raven leaves, Charles goes about his business as usual, but he thinks of nothing but his sister and the warrior nation where Erik was. If anyone asks him if he’s preoccupied, the answer is a resounding yes, and for the most part Charles just wanders around the castle and does some half-hearted work while getting lost in his own mind. He starts to think that maybe he was just the slightest bit obsessed with Shaw’s hostile omega, yes, but it wasn’t in a romantic or sexual way. Erik needed to be saved, and Charles wanted to be the one to save him.

He waits at the gates the afternoon his sister returns, greets her at the entrance to the castle and pokes her on the cheek to prompt her to shift back to her regular skin--something that he’d been doing since he was a young boy.

“How’d it go?” Charles asks, trying to keep his voice neutral. Raven could never know he was up day and night thinking about Erik, but he had a feeling she’d find out somehow.

Raven runs a hand back through her hair, raising her eyebrows before exhaling forcefully and putting them back down. “Let me sit down before I tell you anything.” She says, which doesn’t do a lot to make Charles feel any better.

Charles follows her obediently through the halls of the palace until they find their way back to his quarters, not Raven’s, and she falls backward onto his bed again like she so often did. Charles turns his chair around from his desk and sits in it, watching her expectantly. “So?”

Raven sighs, and lifts her upper half up on her elbows. “So. I saw Erik.”

Immediately, something lights up in Charles’ chest. He’s not sure if it’s excitement, joy, or fear, but it’s probably a mixture of the three. “You did? How was he? Did you see the children? Did he look to be in good health?”

Raven sucks in a breath through her teeth and gives Charles an apologetic look.

“Not...really.”

Charles wilts in his chair. “What...how was he?”

Raven thinks for a moment before speaking again. Charles doesn’t look into her mind to see because he never did with her.

She begins: “When I pulled up at camp I was talking to what seemed to be border patrol guards on their shift. They didn’t let me into Genosha at all, just helped me plod along the outskirts, but on my lap around I saw a fair bit from the outside.”

Charles nods, egging her on.

“I didn’t see Shaw, but I could see his tent where he kept the omega--Erik, sorry. I kept my eye on it the entire time I was in the camp’s vicinity. And I did see him, at one point, I saw him walking from behind the tent to its entrance and go inside. He was with one of his kids.”

Charles thinks it’s a little worrying how large the wave of relief that rolls over him is when he hears that. “Which child? What did they look like?”

“She had green hair? He was carrying her on his hip, so he was obviously up and about, and was also definitely not pregnant anymore, but from what I could tell he looked really unhealthy.”

Unhealthy how, Charles is about to interrupt Raven to say, until she continues.

“Like...he was gaunt. And I think he was limping. I was far away, but you know I have good eyesight, so I could tell he looked just- positively exhausted.”

Charles leans his elbows on the arms of his chair and steeples his fingers in front of his mouth, breathing out slowly through his nose. Genosha not letting even a wayward traveler set a foot into their camp, Shaw being suspiciously absent from any outside attention, and Erik seemingly on the decline? And possibly the most concerning of all, no sight of a newborn? None of this was reassuring at all.

Still, at least Charles now knew more of what was going on up north than he had before. “Thank you, Raven.” He murmurs, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance between his bed and his desk.

Obviously, Charles was not pleased that his bad hunch had turned out to be relatively correct, but it only motivated him more to plan a takedown of Shaw from the Genoshan throne once and for all. Erik was the heir to the empire, he was the one who deserved to be in Shaw’s place--and Charles was done with Shaw calling the shots and taking advantage of the people he was supposed to protect when he rose to power.

A few days after Raven comes back, Charles calls her and his three most trusted confidants into the palace war hall to talk about Genosha, and to talk about Shaw.

At the round table, Charles is at his throne. Raven sits directly to his right, and to his left sits Henry “Hank” Mccoy, royal doctor and advisor as well as tea connoisseur, as was coined by Raven. Next to them sit Scott Summers and Logan Howlett, high-ranking generals in Westchester’s army under Raven. Scott had been taken in by Charles at a young age after his older brother died on the battlefield, leaving him with no family, and Logan Charles had coaxed down from living in the woods as a wild animal to living as a (relatively) normal man with a lot of care and emotion in his heart that he put into taking care of others. Charles trusted everyone at the table with him with his life, and he knew that they knew battle strategy and war a lot better than he did.

Hopefully no one would look down upon him too harshly once he told them who was at the core of his reasoning for finally killing Shaw.

“I want to rescue the king’s omega and his children.” He tells his friends after a lot of useless prattling and dodging the subject. They were talking about troop formations and Genoshan weapons, but all heads turned to look at Charles with varying degrees of confusion after Hank had gently asked him why he really wanted to do this, after so long of dancing around the issue of the war. Even he didn’t look like he expected Charles to answer him with that.

Raven rolls her eyes. “You...why?” Hank sputters, lost for words.

Charles motions vaguely at Raven. “When we were in Genosha last Autumn, I met him at the banquet, and…” He is definitely not going to say that Erik stole his heart and has occupied his thoughts with his haunted eyes and sharp-toothed smile ever since. “...And when we got a chance to talk it was clear that Shaw was abusing him, as well as the children he had borne.”

Multiple raises of eyebrows.

“Raven’s trip a few days ago was prompted by me, so she could check on him, and…”

“And he didn’t look very good.” Raven answers. “From what I could see, anyway. So You’re sure about this, Charles? Killing Shaw and capturing the omega?”

“Not capturing him, for goodness’ sake, _rescuing_ him! And his children!” Charles insists. “They can stay in Westchester for a while until we have Genosha under control and then we can put him back on the throne, where he belongs. He used to be the prince before Shaw took over.”

Scott looks perplexed and hesitant, and so does Hank, but Logan leans back in his chair and shrugs. “I say we do it. Only problem is that Shaw’s near invincible and he’s got a lot of people that would die for him.”

“That’s easy,” Raven replies. “At least the ‘lot of people’ part. What they have in skill we make up for in numbers. Actually killing Shaw...will be different, but I doubt capturing the Genoshan camp will be that hard in the first place.”

She snaps her fingers and points at Charles then. “Actually, Charles, about killing Shaw--how do you think we should go about it? Do you want to be the one who does the deed?”

Much to his surprise, Charles...actually hadn’t thought that far. And when he did start thinking about it, the less interested in the idea he became. He had killed quite a few in his day, before his injury, but every time his sword slit a neck or skewered a ribcage it stayed in his conscience forever. Shaw was a monster, but Charles had a feeling that if he killed him he’d be tortured by his own mind about it for the rest of his days. 

However, there could still be a way he could assist with the murder without actually touching the man himself. His fingers absentmindedly flutter near his temple.

“No, I...I don’t want to be the one to do it. But I have an idea.”

No one says a word, prompting him to continue.

Charles clears his throat. “Shaw’s gift is that he can absorb energy. This means the force exerted upon him by a fist or by a sword, by an arrow or by any weapon at all wouldn’t do anything to him. If he wishes it, he can heal himself with the energy he absorbs. _But,_ if when we are at camp, what if I could take control of his mind and freeze him in place so that he can be killed without the opportunity to heal?”

He motions back at his friends with his palms upturned, waiting for any feedback or criticism, but he doesn’t get any. This was going over better than he thought.

“He’s gotta have a powerful mind.” Logan grumbles. “And you have to think about what’d happen to you if you’re controlling someone while they die.”

His words ring cold in the war hall, and a shiver goes down Charles’ spine. Nevertheless, he swallows and straightens himself up in his throne. 

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” For Erik.

Raven looks at him incredulously. “You’d die for him? Just like that?”

“Yes.” Charles says resolutely, fixing her with his stare. “I’ve lived a good, privileged life. He has been forced to endure unimaginable pain since he was a child. If I die saving him from his tormentor I will die a just death.”

He turns his gaze toward the gruff man on the opposite side of the table. “Logan, if we are to stay with this plan and a time comes when I have Shaw’s mind controlled enough to freeze him in place both mentally and physically, can you be the one to kill him?”

Logan leans forward in his seat and nods. “Yeah, Chuck. I can do that.”

Charles knows Logan is very powerful and very smart. If anyone was going to kill a tyrant, he deserved to. He had gone through enough at the hands of evil men in his long lifetime.

He exhales, closing his eyes. “Thank you.”

Raven crosses her arms over her chest and shoots Charles an approving look. “Then I guess we’ve got a plan, huh?”

With a sharp decisive rap on the wooden table, Charles opens his eyes and puts on a smile. “We do. We’re going to kill Sebastian Shaw.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was a bit harder to get this one out but i did! posting it on my bday so happy birth to me :)  
> also two sidenotes:  
> -y'know erik's scruffier more 'relaxed' look in xmen apocalypse when he's living in poland with his wife and nina? that's his look for this fic.  
> -the 'R' charles signs next to his name in his letter stands for Rex, meaning king in latin. it's apparently a thing the english royal family does.
> 
> as always, please tell me what you think! comments make my day and make me write more heheheh


	4. belgian draft

CHARLES

After the war plan has been made, Charles becomes known as a recluse king to the rest of his closer confidants and doesn’t leave the castle.

His subjects are concerned about him, because he was the type of man to go out to town often when his bad leg wasn’t bothering him too much, but they needn’t be. Charles appoints the help of sorceress Jean Grey and asks any other powerful telepaths Westchester houses to help his own powers get stronger.

Charles was already renowned as an unnaturally strong psychic, but what he had right now wasn’t enough to him. As long as anyone could resist his control over their mind, he wasn’t powerful enough to face Shaw. 

It sounded near-megalomaniacal to say or think, that much was true-- but anyone who knew Charles knew that he kept the reins on his abilities drawn so tight that it was rare he did anything to anyone besides simply reading their uppermost thoughts. He was scared of himself. Raven knew this, Hank knew this, even Logan knew this. For something to inspire Charles enough to want to make his powers stronger over others, it had to be big.

Logan, the oldest soldier in Westchester’s army by a good hundred years and the person with the speediest healing factor in the kingdom, is Charles’ voluntary guinea pig. Charles knows how hard it is for Logan to trust people to manipulate his body and brain, he knows what he’s been through, so he treats his friend with utmost care and respect while he lets him control his mind and puppeteer his limbs. He makes him freeze in place, makes him say things he never would, makes him do things none of which are by his own accord. Once, Charles makes Logan slit his skin open on his shoulder and watches, horrified at what he’d done, as the flesh stitches itself back together before his very eyes.

Logan’s healing was innate, out of his control. Shaw’s wasn’t. Logan had decades of barriers built up around his mind that Charles slowly manages to punch through, one by one. Shaw had the same.

He talks to Jean about whether she was alright going up against Shaw’s telepath, who wasn’t as powerful as Charles himself but was older, and as such likely had more experience resisting others. If she was able to shield Shaw, he tells her, the entire war effort may fall apart.

Jean is a selfless young woman and once she knows about Erik she agrees to help. “As long as I can get her out of the way by the time you need me,” She answers Charles, who sighs in relief.  
“You will. I have complete faith in you, my girl.”

One day, Raven sneaks up on him while he’s in the back palace gardens and nearly makes him have a heart attack. After Charles recovers from almost whacking her with his cane across the head, she asks him about Erik’s role in all of this.

“What?” 

“You know, his role. We’re killing Shaw _for him,_ I feel like he should know we’re coming.”

She makes a point, Charles thinks. From what he knew about Erik he’d likely be put off if Shaw was killed without him knowing about it beforehand, or without him having a part to play in it. He wanted Logan to kill the man in the end but...he thinks about it, and if Erik managed to beat any of them to the punch he wouldn’t complain. It’d be a revenge kill well-earned.

But there was a problem.

“You make a point,” Charles says, speaking his mind. “But how would we get the information of the attack to Erik without...consequences? I still don’t know what happened after I sent my letter, and you said…”

Raven makes an agreeing sound. “Well, since me going in disguise to Genosha worked so well last time, why don’t I go again?”

Charles tilts his head to the side in question.

“I can drop into camp and talk to him.”

“What--” He sputters, eyes going wide and then scrunching nearly closed. “No, why would you do that? _How_ would you do that, more accurately? Talk to him? Raven, you’re out of your mind.”

But, as she always does, Raven has a plan cooked up in her head already.

“I got the idea from watching you and Jean. She can do that thing where-” She wiggles her fingers around her temple as if she was copying Charles. “-where she can boost your powers temporarily, right?”

Charles raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“So, what if I go to Genosha, disguised again, and also maybe at night-- and you can be boosted and speak to Erik through me? Or you can just tell me what to say to him about the attack, or you can watch through my eyes when I talk to him.”

God damn it, she makes another point. Why is Raven the one with all the good ideas, and not him, Charles wonders.

He switches his cane to his other hand. “Before I say yes, tell me how you’d be talking to him in the first place.”

Raven shifts her position leaning against a low garden wall and gestures at him as she speaks. “I noticed on my last trip there that there are patrol guards stationed around the outside of camp- I can disguise myself as one of them and drop in at night so I’m less noticeable. I still remember the tent that I saw Erik go into and where you and he were heading when you slipped out of the banquet last autumn, so I can hang around there. I think...hm.”

Charles shoots her a pointed glance as a prompt for her to continue.

“Do you think you could speak to him through my mind while I’m there? I just think he’d probably be around Shaw at night, and I don’t want to enter his tent while he’s in there because I don’t want to be killed.”

Fair of her to consider, Charles thinks. “I probably could, if I’m being boosted.”

“Okay, good. So you can control him and make him leave, or ask him, I don’t know- and I talk to him outside out of earshot or mindshot of anybody else in camp. Easy.” And then she shrugs, like it wasn’t anything to worry about.

Charles huffs a laugh, and gives Raven a wry smile. “I have to admit, it’s compelling. I have no idea if Erik would actually listen to me if I tell him to do anything, though.”

_I don’t know how he feels about me anymore_ goes unsaid.

“If all else fails, you can control him--” Raven starts, but Charles shuts that down quickly.

“I am not going to be making him do anything, Raven. I either convince him or I don’t.”

She sighs. “Fine, so that’s the hitch upon which this plan falls. If he doesn’t agree, I’ll just leave, and he doesn’t know we’re killing Shaw. You’re okay with this?”

“Oh, don’t say it like that…” Charles whines, rolling his eyes. 

“But I am, because that’s how it is. Yes or no, Charles.” She insists, planting her hands on her hips.

Yellow eyes bore into blue ones, and Charles relents. “Fine, yes, okay. Let’s do it. You know I’m going to worry about you the entire time you’re gone, right?”

“You worry about me whenever I leave Westchester for anything.”

“Maybe so. When do you think you’d be leaving?”

Raven taps her foot on a ground and thinks for a moment. “Maybe sometime next week? I don’t think we’re in a hurry, and you could have more time to work with Jean so there’d be less strain on your end when I do go.”

Charles nods slowly- he assumes he’d have to be tracking Raven’s mind for her entire journey, which would no doubt be tiring, but if Erik got news about the attack then it’d be worth it in his eyes. “That can work.”

“Great.” Raven lights up. “You’re lucky I’m willing to run back and forth from Genosha like some kind of glorified messenger pigeon, you know. After Shaw’s dead you owe me.”

“Only after Shaw’s dead?” Charles says back at her, lips curling up in a smile. 

“Yeah, and after you and Erik get together.”

“Oh, shut up.” He says, whacking her on the arm. Raven laughs, nudging him back in the side.

The two of them meander back through the gardens and into the castle, Charles with a newly- awoken motivation to get back to the grindstone with Jean and with a silent promise to Erik that _we’ll be there soon, don’t worry, hold on. We’re coming._

ERIK

In the weeks far after Nina’s death when Erik begins to function like a human being again, his thoughts turn wholeheartedly to his collar and how in the world he could be able to get it off.

There are three things he knows:

1\. The collar is made of leather and has a metal lock at the back of his neck.  
2\. The collar had been enchanted so that his powers were neutralized when he had it on, so he can’t disconnect it or melt it like he would be able to otherwise.  
3\. The keeper of the keys is named Janos Quested, and out of all of Shaw’s confidants he is the least paranoid.

Erik spends minutes at a time every day tracing his fingers over the lock in the collar, memorizing the keyhole’s shape, and whenever he sees Janos he looks as close as he can at the keyring hung on his belt for which key could possibly unlock it. He studies Lorna’s collar, too, studies the lock on it, and comes to the conclusion that the same key could very likely unlock both of them. 

Janos is mute--he communicates with others through sign language or through Emma, who speaks for him, and Erik is thankful that when he takes the key (because he will, he has to) he won’t make any noise to alert anyone. Nina’s death and Charles’ determination have sparked a new flame of rebellion inside of him, and this time Erik will stop at nothing to free himself and his children from Shaw’s torment once and for all. He was old enough, wise enough, hurt enough to do it. This time he was sure. He had hope.

In the meantime, as his plan continues to percolate in the back of his mind behind Emma-proof shields, something good happens. Shaw lets Erik teach the twins how to ride horses.

Azazel, the teleporting devil who’s as close to Shaw as Emma and Janos are, accompanies Erik when he takes the children out to the stables and watches them closely as they lead the horses out into the fields. If they tried to run away, he would waste no time at all in porting to where they are and stopping them, but it’s okay. This is the farthest Erik has been from Shaw in years.

Once a day, every day, for a period of a few weeks, Erik teaches Pietro and Wanda to ride like his father taught him.

They are allowed three horses, two for the twins and one for Erik. Lorna stays with Azazel, and Erik is thankful to all the gods that he is at least kind to her. 

The first thing he teaches the twins is how to establish trust with a horse. Always approach a horse from the front, keep a hand on their flank when you’re around its backside, and keep yourself calm, he tells them- horses feel human emotion and if you’re scared, they will be too. Wanda is a natural with her horse, and they bond straight away, and even though it takes Pietro’s horse a short while to get used to him and all his energy it warms up to him quickly.

Erik’s horse is an old stallion who has been around since Erik was young. He came to Genosha shortly after Erik’s parents were killed, and even though he is very tired and weary now he loves Erik like a puppy. They’ve grown up together, the two of them, and Erik knows he will mourn this horse when he dies. Oftentimes Erik sits on his back and they both watch the twins and their horses run circles around each other in the field, watching to see if their respective proteges get hurt.

He teaches his children about guiding your horse, about communicating with them while riding. Pietro is very enthusiastic with the vocal commands and Wanda is too scared to dig her heels into her horse's side, but after some repeating and coaxing Pietro has the calls down pat and Wanda trusts that she won’t hurt her mare when she kicks her sides. 

Erik teaches them how to go from a walk to a trot, from a trot to a canter, and from a canter to a gallop. Azazel makes sure Erik knows that he’s watching them when they’re getting into a faster groove, teleporting somewhere nearby with Lorna with his tail flicking around his legs. Erik obeys, and doesn’t let the children stray too far from him- they always stay within his vision.

Teaching them how to ride takes Erik’s mind off of Nina, off of Charles. It makes him feel alive again. The broiling anger in his soul is quieted when he hears Pietro whoop excitedly while running his horse back and forth, back and forth, and when Wanda’s horse gently headbutts her and snuffles into her hair. Sometimes, Erik can look at them and believe his life is normal. That he is teaching his children to ride, and that he is not a prisoner and not an orphan.

Even though she is not of riding age yet, Lorna is a natural with the horses, and they all seem to love her. Erik sits her up on his stallion in front of him and lets her see the world on horseback, and even though she’s a little scared of being so high up Erik’s steady presence comforts her. She is already bonding with these large animals even though she is still so young, and Erik is immensely proud of her and the twins.

Soon, he thinks. Soon we will leave, and we will be happy and safe. You won’t have to fear being killed by your own father anymore. Erik would destroy the world for his children and build it back up again from the pieces. It was never just for him, his desire to leave Genosha-- he wanted to keep his family safe.

While the children learn to ride and he's out of the tent more often, Erik watches Janos very closely.

He keeps an eye on him whenever he’s outside in camp, follows his movements and his schedule and allows himself to ask one (just one) question to Shaw about his role. 

“What do you use him for?” He asks the alpha one day, after Shaw had fucked him hard into their bed and was sitting with his legs swung over the side while Erik tried to regain feeling in his lower half. Shaw silently turns his head toward Erik in question of who.

“Janos. He’s never spoken to me.”

Shaw chuckles. “Why would he talk to you? You’re not a prisoner.”

Already, that tells Erik a lot of what he needs to know. Why Janos had that keyring on him at all times, why he paced around the west side of camp where prisoners of war were usually kept in the evening. It also reminded him that Shaw was a vain tyrant who didn’t see nor care about the pain he inflicted upon others, and that he had to die.

“I don’t know.” Erik sighs, turning over in bed. He had heard enough. Shaw scoffs, shakes his head, and doesn’t reply.

Eventually Erik decides to put the first part of his plan into action on a night where Janos does his rounds near Shaw’s side of the camp. Emma has been at a reasonable distance from him all day, and even though she was Erik kept his newly-strengthened shields up around his mind whenever he was awake. He knows where Janos will be at this time of evening, now, and he is confident he knows what the key to his collar will look like once he gets his hands on the keyring. Erik knows what he is going to do--the hard part is getting away from Shaw and not making him suspicious.

Shaw and the children are in their tent, and all slowly falling asleep. Most often times Erik is the last one to drift off for a multitude of reasons, so after he kisses Wanda and Lorna on the forehead and holds Pietro still so he can kiss him too, he kneels down next to Shaw and tells him quietly that he’s going to go out and do the washing. The sun is still spilling light over the fields, but won’t for much longer--he has to hurry.

Shaw grasps his chin in one hand and kisses him on the lips, and it makes Erik feel sick, but he weathers through it. He’s waved out of the tent dismissively by Shaw after that, and when he exits with the basket of laundry he’s met by Emma, standing outside. 

They meet eyes for a moment--Emma is obviously searching inside his mind for anything, but Erik’s shields are as strong as steel and twice as thick by now, so she won’t find anything. She frowns, arched eyebrows furrowing together briefly, but then she turns away from him and looks out into camp and Erik absconds to the nearby river where the camp got its water from.

He can see Janos when he gets there, just off to his right at the Genoshan border. He’s standing with his back facing Erik, head tilted upward toward the sunset-painted sky, and is not moving.

Erik looks around himself in all directions. No one was around but the two of them, and the soft grass underneath his bare feet quieted his footsteps. Now was the time.

He leaves the basket filled with clothes by the riverbank and quietly, slowly, makes his way over to Janos by way of the shadows cast by tents. 

Erik is taller than Janos, and stronger, so when he claps one hand around the guard’s mouth to muffle any gasps and circles his other arm around his neck, Janos can’t escape. He tries to twist around in Erik’s grasp to get a look at him, but he can’t, and Erik’s arms are locked tight around his windpipe and slowly squeeze it shut over the course of a couple minutes. Eventually Janos’s hands stop scrabbling at Erik’s arms and he goes limp, sliding down to the ground, unconscious.

Pressing two fingers to Janos’s neck, Erik looks for his heartbeat. If he died, if Erik killed him, he couldn’t even _imagine_ the consequences that could befall both him and his children if Shaw found out. Luckily, Janos is still alive, so with a relieved breath Erik drops to his knees and yanks the keyring off of the guard’s belt.

He flips through key after key, going back to the shape of the lock on Lorna’s collar and the outline on the one on his. It burns on his neck like it was made of fire--the closer he got to taking it off the more it seemed to hurt him. There were too many _goddamn_ keys on this keyring, he thinks as his hands start to sweat, where’s the right one?

After a few goes through the ring, Erik thinks he found the right one. It’s a dark greenish-gold, made of the same metal that the collar locks are, and looks old, weathered. Erik reaches back to trace the keyhole on the lock of his own collar, and compares its shape to the shaft of the key. His fingertips weren’t exactly reliable, but he had felt this shape so many times over the past few weeks that this _had_ to be it, it had to be. He wouldn’t accept any other option.

Erik swallows his fear and shuffles the key off of the keyring, leaving the rest instead of taking the whole thing so that Janos wouldn’t notice one was gone. Holding it in his hand, he feels like he was touching the thing that was the cause of all misery and ruin in his life for thirty years. It wasn’t Shaw, or Emma, no. It was the key to the collar that controlled him.

Anya wouldn’t have died if Erik bent the dagger used to slit her neck into a crushed ball. Nina wouldn’t have died if he used all the metal surrounding Shaw on all the Genoshans to push him away or skewer him and make him let go of her. Shaw wouldn’t have done anything to him if Erik had been powerful enough to force him back, to constrict him, to get away from him. After Shaw had locked the collar around his neck, that was when everything went wrong.

Erik clenches his fist tight around the key, closing his eyes. This was his salvation. This was his revenge. This was justice for his mother and father, for Anya, for Nina.

After his moment of reverie Erik stands, backing away from Janos’s prone body slowly, and when he’s far enough he turns and hightails it back to the river, where the basket still sat. He shoves the key far down into the bottom under all the clothes, and kneels down beside the water to actually do the washing. Shaw was attentive--if Erik comes back and hadn’t done what he said he’d do, he would get suspicious, and his entire plan could come crashing down around him. Doing anything out of line was even more dangerous when Shaw was willing to hurt Erik’s children, not just him.

The key feels like a heavy weight in the basket when he piles everything back in and picks it up to carry back into the tent, as if he could feel it like he would if he had his powers back. Soon they really will be, he thinks, and the thought of feeling his connection to metal again after so long...scares him.

Erik will be overwhelmed, he knows that. From jewelry to buckles on belts, from weapons to arrowheads to bridles on horses to the metal deep in the earth, Erik will feel it all at once when the collar comes off, and he will be overwhelmed. He reminds himself he has to be ready for it when it comes, and that’s all he can do to prepare. He’s already so thankful he hasn’t forgotten what his powers feel like, but the memories have no doubt been dampened by time.

He slips back into the tent by the time the sun has fully slipped below the horizon, and everyone is asleep...except Wanda, as usual. Erik slides by her to place the basket down next to the bed and kneels next to her on her cot, stroking her hair. She always worried when he went off anywhere alone.

She giggles at him--he shushes her with a single finger to his lips, and gives her a questioning glance.

“You’re happy.” She whispers, but really mouths. Erik tilts his head down and laughs quietly under his breath- Wanda had always had a knack for knowing exactly how he’s feeling at any given moment.

“Yes.” He mouths back to her, nodding. “But you and I have to sleep now.”

Wanda pulls her blankets up further toward her face and her big scarlet eyes peer out at Erik from above them. He smooths his hand over her forehead and presses his lips to her temple- “Good night, my love.”

She murmurs something incomprehensible back to him and Erik smiles, turning back to the basket and pulling out the key.

He uses a thin strip of leather torn from an old coat to make into a necklace, looping it through a hole in the end of the key and tying it loosely around his neck. The key lands directly over his heart, cold metal on warm skin, and as Erik slips quietly into bed next to Shaw he settles his hand over it on his chest.

The right time to use the key would have to be after they escape, eventually. It has to be at the right moment when he’s sure he and his children are safe, far enough away from Genosha not to be detected immediately, and have time to rest. For the first time in decades, excitement of all feelings courses through him instead of fear.

Hope is back.

One night after the key has been lying under his tunic for a short while, and when Erik is already half asleep with Shaw’s arm draped possessively over his waist, he hears something--someone--in his mind.

_Erik._

At first, it terrifies him. Was it Emma? His shields had fallen as he drifted off, and he was too groggy to set them upright again. His heart starts to pick up its pace as he struggles to get them back in order, but before he can the unknown voice speaks again, attempting to soothe him.

_It’s not Emma. It’s Charles, Erik, I need you to get up._

_Charles?_ He thinks confusedly. Charles was in Westchester, Charles was safe in his home writing dangerous letters and stupid words and didn’t know what he did.

The voice seems to take notice of that. _What did I--no, now’s not the time. Erik, you need to get up. Head for the closest border of camp._

Erik scrubs a hand over his face, letting out a quiet sigh of irritation. He _really_ did not have the energy nor restraint to communicate with Charles in any way right now, and really, why would he listen to anything he says?

_Please, Erik. I have a confidant in camp who has important information for you. Can you get away from the tent for a moment?_

Erik’s eyes slide open, looking at pitch blackness which slowly turns into shadowy darkness lit only by the moon. He shuffles out of Shaw’s arm, which he usually did whenever he woke up at night and it was around him. 

_What ‘important information’._

_Trust me. It will only take but a minute._

He sighs soundlessly. _Fine._

Once he thinks that, the voice retreats from his head, and Erik heaves himself over the side of the bed onto unsteady legs. Shaw makes a sound from the mattress, and Erik plays the good omega and grasps the older man’s hand for a moment. 

“I need to relieve myself. I won’t take long.” He whispers, because Shaw wanted to know where he was at all times, and he seems to take that as a good enough excuse to stay where he was in bed.

Erik slips out of the tent and follows Charles-voice’s instructions, trailing along the edge of camp behind the outermost ring of tents to see if there was anything or anyone he was supposed to see. Before long, he finds what he was supposed to be looking for. A Genoshan warrior approaches him, and his metaphorical hackles raise before the warrior winks lurid yellow eyes at him and he realizes that that’s General Darkholme, Charles’ closest confidant.

How was Charles even speaking to him?

_I have appointed the help of a sorceress._ His voice helpfully answers. And then, more modestly, he adds- _You don’t look very well, Erik._

He scoffs. _I am aware._

But then Charles finally shuts up, and the general--Raven, her name is, sheds her appearance like the skin off of a snake and he’s left staring at a woman with blue skin and red hair.

“Sorry that this is how we have to meet for the first time, but what I have to tell you can’t wait long.” She tells him, and Erik raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“Tell me what?” He says, with no little amount of distrust.

“Westchester is going to go to war against Genosha very soon,” She tells him. “And we are going to kill Sebastian Shaw.”

Erik’s heart leaps into his throat. After he registers what she said all he can think is that _he_ was the one who needed to kill Shaw, no one else deserved to more than him.

He doesn’t say that though. Raven continues to speak.

“The king wanted you to be in the know specifically because he has a soft spot for you, and he wants you to know that we’re attacking so you can protect your children when the time comes, and if you want, partake in the tyrant’s murder yourself.”

_Partake,_ he thinks venomously, _I’m going to be the one to ensure that his heart stops beating._

Raven looks at him expectantly, probably assuming he’ll agree, and in that moment Erik snaps.

“I will have no part in your machinations of war.” He spits at her, jaw clenched and teeth bared like a wild animal. “Shaw is my kill. Not yours. He’s never laid a hand on anyone you love, he’s never used _you_ as a broodmare or whipped you when you didn’t behave.”

He takes a step toward Raven, but she doesn’t move.

“You can tell your king,” Erik snarls. “That I’ve had enough of him trying to do things for me, always what he thinks is in _my_ best interest, for _my_ own good. I’m not a child, Charles!” He says loudly, now, looking up at the sky as if the king could hear his voice. “I don’t need to be _protected!”_

Raven reaches out a placating hand toward him. “This has been a long time coming, Erik. Your people will be freed with this push forward, not just you and your family. Think of your children.”

Charles is annoyingly silent in his head as Erik rolls his head around on his neck with his eyes, shooting Raven a glare. “You think a moment goes by when I _don’t_ think about them? Neither you or your king have any right to decide what is best for me, what I need to think. His _letter_ nearly destroyed me. Do you know that? Does Charles know that?”

As Erik keeps his eyes trained intensely on Raven, he watches her expression change from concerned to confused to shocked.

“...No.” She murmurs, and Erik turns away from her, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Of course not. Charles is a spoiled brat who doesn’t take time to think about the consequences of his actions, despite all the power in that head of his. Tell me, Darkholme, what did he think sending me that letter would accomplish?”

“He...just wanted to make sure you were alright.” She says, uncharacteristically meek.

“My _daughter_ is _dead.”_ Erik growls. “She’s dead because Charles killed her.”

Raven opens her mouth to retort, but Erik holds a hand up and she stays silent. “Of course Shaw looked at the letter. Did he think he wouldn’t? I’ve never seen him so mad as he was that day. He took my daughter from my arms and killed her in front of a crowd, like she was a spectacle of public embarrassment meant to punish me. She is in the _ground_ because of your king, General, she is dead and she was a _MONTH OLD.”_

Erik’s voice had risen to a dangerous volume during his tirade, and as he composes himself he screws his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose, attempting to stop the tears that he could feel gathering behind his eyes. 

For all of Charles’ care and concern, all he had done was make Erik suffer needlessly. His kindness had cost a life.

When he finally looks over at Raven again, she has a hand over her mouth and is frozen in place, staring at him with wide eyes. He’s not sure, but he thinks that the unusual feeling of horrified guilt in his mind belongs to Charles, not him. 

He takes a deep breath.

“I will kill Shaw. When you and your soldiers come, do whatever you want. But leave him to me.”

Raven nods wordlessly.

“And Charles?” He adds. There’s no response. “Never speak to me again.”

With that, Erik turns on his heel and stalks off back toward his tent, leaving Raven standing shocked in the shadows on the border and an unnerving emptiness in his mind that he’s quick to cover back up with his shields. The children and Shaw are still all asleep when he climbs back into bed, newly fuming with reignited anger, and he takes the key out of his shirt and grips it hard.

Never again will he be taken advantage of, never again will he be treated like someone who’s lesser. Never again will he allow himself to be hurt and tamed. Never again.

CHARLES

In the castle, Charles sits in his quarters with Jean at his side. When he retreats from Raven’s mind after a very long night he opens his eyes and finds them wet.

“My lord?” Jean asks, timidly. Charles touches his fingers to his face, and they come back wet. He tries to breathe in and his breath hitches.

His gaze travels down to his hands, wet and still stained with ink from when he had written in his journal for the day. The candle sat on his desk to his left flickers, and the ink looks like dark red blood.

“My god,” He whispers hollowly. “What have I done. What have I done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are some parts of this chapter that i like more than others but i hope you enjoy it, all the same! please leave me a comment to tell me your thoughts and/or feelings :]


	5. american quarter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for explicit noncon sex scene.

EMMA

While everyone in camp slept soundly to the sound of cicadas and crickets buzzing away in the night, voices from the border made their way into Emma’s ear and into her head. They were thinking quite loudly, whoever they were, and they were keeping her from her beauty rest. It was highly unusual for anyone to be up at this hour besides the patrol guards, and even they never thought as loud as this unknown stranger.

Something was off.

Emma sat up in her bed and folded her hands in her lap as she sat and focused on the voices speaking across camp from her. It was one voice, feminine and stubborn, but another one followed her, soft and muted.

In fact, it really felt like the feminine voice was talking to herself, but Emma knew that wasn’t all of it. She focused a bit more, observing but not interfering, and as the softer voice faded in and out, talking to someone unknown, she realized that it was another telepath.

She clenched her hands around her silken bedsheets. How was this possible?

Emma was the only telepath in Genosha, she would know if there was another one (and they’d likely be exiled straightaway). This telepath in the feminine voice’s mind was lower, more masculine, but restrained and polite. Where had she heard that voice before?

And then it hit her.

What were they doing here. Why were they here. Who were they talking to.

Emma made a note to gather all border guards at dawn and interrogate them about what they had seen and heard, if anything, that night. If someone on the western border was speaking to the King of Westchester right now, _they had better not be._

She doesn’t sleep the rest of the night. Disturbing the king while he rested could spell serious consequences for anybody, no matter their status, so Emma was fitfully confined to her tent until morning when Shaw rose. The voices continued speaking, but they grew agitated and distressed, and Emma listened. 

_This has been a long time coming._

_Your people will be freed with this push forward!_

_God, what have I done?_

It was treason. Westchester had a rat in camp.

The next morning, Emma waits outside of the king’s tent for him to arise so she could tell him everything as soon as possible. She wasn’t an excitable woman by any means, but the possibility that their enemies were working with someone among their ranks to plan an attack was unprecedented. Perhaps King Xavier was finally losing his seemingly-endless patience.

Shaw emerges from inside and looks surprised to see Emma for a moment, but his expression smooths over into a polite smile and he offers his arm to her.

“I assume you have something to tell me?”

Emma slips her arm into his, and they meander away from the tent toward the rest of camp. “Oh, honey, you’re going to be so glad when I tell you.”

True to her word, she tells Shaw everything. The person with a telepath inside their head at the border of camp. The fact that the telepath was somehow Charles Xavier, who had either become powerful enough to speak to a Genoshan from Westchester or had something at home making him more powerful. How they were talking about some kind of attack against Genosha to bring Shaw down.

Shaw seems nonplussed, meditative, and Emma watches him as his microexpressions go through the journey of surprise, to anger, to scheming. She admired his ability to stay so cool in any situation--people who couldn’t handle distress annoyed her.

“So?” She asks him, once he had been quiet for a while. “What’s the plan?”

Shaw takes a deep breath in, smiles close-lipped at Emma, and pats her arm with his free hand. “I want you to continue with the interrogation later today, my dear. I’ll take care of everything else.”

And she believes him.

When she sees Shaw with a helmet on a few days later, after a failed interrogation in which no one gave her anything useful, she becomes interested again.

Emma silently raises an eyebrow at Shaw, and he grins. “An artificer and sorcerer made me this.” He says, tapping his index finger on the bottom edge of the helmet. It curved around his eyes and came to a point down his nose, shining and smooth.

“What does it do?”

He laughs once, a single _hah_ that manages to send a shiver down Emma’s spine. 

“What am I thinking?”

Emma focuses, looks for an opening into Shaw’s mind so that she can enter it, but no matter what she does she can’t find any. It’s as if a stubborn barrier was covering his thoughts that she couldn’t break through, even with her impressive talent. It annoys her that she can’t get through, but then again, she realizes that was probably the point.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“I was thinking that you are the most exquisite thing I have ever seen.” Shaw purrs, and Emma’s lips curl up into a smile. She feels a smug sense of satisfaction in the fact that King Xavier wouldn’t be able to do anything to Shaw now that his mind was fully sealed.

Shaw wasn’t done, though. “--And that my omega needs his guard.”

Emma’s smile slips off of her face. It wasn’t unexpected of Shaw to say something like that to her after giving her a compliment, but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth. She disliked standing outside Shaw’s tent for multiple hours a day just because he had taken a rebellious omega for his mate, but...Shaw was in charge. He was in charge, and even though he was often kind to her he had no qualms about hurting people who were loyal to him if they ‘misbehaved.’

She pulls her arm out of his and turns on her heel, traveling back through camp to the king’s tent to stand guard outside of it. Shaw’s mind is now a void where she left it, a strange emptiness in the sea of thoughts that she wades through. It was good for the safety of his rule, but she didn’t like not knowing what he was thinking.

ERIK

Shortly after his meeting with Raven, Shaw leaves camp for an entire day on ‘confidential business’ and leaves Erik stewing in his own thoughts the entire time he’s gone.

It’s honestly one of the best days he’s had in a while, despite. He and the children take the horses out again and Azazel is lax in his observation, so Erik sits Lorna up in front of him on his stallion and lets her hold the reins while the horse walks, directing her gently on how to steer him. Pietro is chasing butterflies, and Wanda is threading flowers into her mare’s mane, and while Azazel quietly watches them from afar Erik feels himself actually _relax._

For once they eat dinner outside with the rest of camp, because Shaw is not here and leadership in his absence falls to Emma. She gives him a look that clearly says ‘don’t start anything or there will be consequences’, but she can’t read his thoughts, so Erik is unaffected by her threat.

A large boar is roasting on a spit above a bonfire, and warriors and craftsmen and civilians are talking, laughing, yelling. The twins and Lorna actually find other children to play with, for once, and Erik keeps a close eye on them as a group as they run around the crowd. Some adults make conversation with him, and although they are wary and careful around him for a number of probable reasons he can see very clearly that they are surprised by how well-spoken he is. Once they realize he’s normal, not an illiterate whore or a sheltered, stunted prisoner, they treat him like he was any other Genoshan.

This taste of normalcy might as well be a drug on Erik’s tongue, because he will long for it forever after it’s gone.

Kill Shaw. That’s all he has to do to get it back. He just has to kill Shaw.

The feast ends late into the night, and even Pietro can’t run anymore when Erik drags him back into the tent for bed. The four of them are exhausted, but in a good way, and although he knows he’ll likely wake up with Shaw’s arm around his waist again Erik falls asleep the easiest he ever had.

True to form, Shaw is back in the morning, and fucks Erik into their bed after he wakes up. While he’s being rocked back into the sheets he tries to go limp and not think of anything like he usually did, but all he can focus on is the new, slate-grey chest sitting on the floor next to their bed.

He doesn’t dare ask what’s inside it, but Shaw lets him know later in the day when he opens it up and pulls out a heavy metal helmet.

_A war helm?_ Is what Erik first thinks. No, it can’t be. Why would he need one, anyway? The existence of the helmet confuses him--it’s just a hunk of metal. Erik can kill him without caring about it.

Despite all that, it makes him feel...unnerved. There’s something about the helmet that made Shaw leave camp for a day to buy it, or have it made, which meant it must be very important.

Shaw leaves the tent after he’s done with Erik and immediately meets up with Emma, the telepath. She looks at the helmet inquisitively, and Shaw gives her one of his hissing laughs--Erik needs to know what that helmet does.

He remembers Emma was there in the morning the night after he met up with Raven, too. He had worried about why she was there, but this just added on to his worry. Had she heard him and Raven talk? Had she heard his thoughts?

No, he had Emma-proof shields up the entire time.

Erik looks at it from a different angle and freezes where he’s lying in bed, all muscles going tense. Did she hear _Raven’s_ thoughts?

Did she hear Raven talking about the attack, with Charles somehow in her mind alongside her?

It would explain why she was so interested in Shaw’s helmet, if it did what Erik thought it did, and it would spell _very_ bad news for Westchester whenever they decided to attack Genosha. They wouldn’t be able to kill Shaw.

They wouldn’t, but Erik would.

He didn’t know when the attack would happen. It could happen next week, or it could happen after months of waiting, planning, scheming. He had to kill Shaw, and soon, before Charles realized that he was really and truly invincible.

The key hanging around his neck was the one thing he had to hold onto through all of this. If he was the only one who could take Shaw down, then he would, no matter what paranoid generals or heavy helmets stood in his way.

Erik didn’t always used to feel like this, feel like he held the rage and the anger necessary to fight his way to freedom, but like it or not Charles had incited it inside him. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and Charles’ unfounded concern had lit a burning fire in Erik’s heart.

He decides he’ll kill Shaw when he’s asleep.

His mind will be silent, the helmet will be off, and he won’t be able to block any attack or heal from any wound before he dies. Erik stays in the tent while the sun rises over the horizon outside and thinks of shoving a stolen knife into Shaw’s eye, or snapping his neck in one fluid motion, or slitting his throat so deep and so widely that he’ll die too quick to think of anything. It had to be quick, otherwise Shaw could come to his senses and kill Erik instead, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

As long as Shaw was awake and thinking, he was invincible. If he was asleep and silent, in all meanings of the word, Erik could be the one to take his life. The thought of that alone made his heart beat faster in his chest.

It had to be at the right moment.

He didn’t want the children to watch a man die; he didn’t want anyone else to be around the tent when he did it. He didn’t want Shaw to make any noise, and he wanted to be ready to escape camp _immediately_ after the deed was done. Now that the opportunity was in his hands, Erik had to find the right time to use it. There could be no possible chance of failure, for he knew if he did then he and his entire family could join his parents in the grave.

Whatever happened first, Erik’s murder of Shaw or Westchester’s attack, he would ensure the tyrant died. He’d find a way. 

He holds onto his hope, buries his fiery anger deep inside of himself, and gets up to face the day.

\---

Months pass in silent, tense anticipation.

It’s stressful waiting for Westchester’s attack. Erik has been waiting for any sign of battle for so long he’s gone past the point of hysterical worry and has circled back to being calm. Maybe they’re just taking their time to plan, he thinks, maybe they want their attack to be just as perfect as his. Maybe Charles was thinking far in advance when he sent Raven to warn him, as if he wasn’t planning on killing Shaw and escaping before he even knew what they were doing. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. With every passing day Erik gets more and more paranoid.

Once or twice he entertains the possibility that Westchester had given up on war. That they would make him wait for an attack that would never come and had given up on saving him and his children, his people, and his parents’ memory. The thought nearly makes him nauseous.

He’s an independent and stubborn man and he had always planned to take down Shaw himself, but this makes him feel...helpless. Why was that? 

Maybe it was because he might have been abandoned by the only people who ever seemed to be on his side. Perhaps that was it.

Erik stops thinking about Westchester leaving him to die in Genosha under Shaw’s rule and continues on.

He nearly kills Shaw more than once.

Erik had slipped a dagger out of a guard’s belt when he passed her one day and kept it under the bed on his side. Anything could be a weapon to him if he had his powers, but he didn’t, so he settled for the knife and its solid weight in his hand whenever he held it. The key buzzed under his tunic as if it was itching to unlock his collar, and he had to urge it that _no, not yet, not yet._

The first time he tries to kill Shaw is at night, as is the second time. The first time he pulls the knife out from under the bed while everyone is dead asleep and holds it with both hands above Shaw’s face, the tip poised directly above his right eye. While his hands shook and sweat Erik tried to move his arms and bring it down into his head, but Shaw breathed in and rolled over in bed and nearly scared Erik half to death.

He put the knife back and decided that tonight wasn’t the time. He was too jittery.

The next time Erik tried again, he held the point of the knife next to the jugular vein in Shaw’s neck. His skin twitched with every heartbeat, moved with every breath Shaw took, and Erik had poked the very tip of the blade into his skin when he thought that the amount of blood that would splatter everywhere would likely traumatize the children, who were sleeping nearby. For them and their innocence, Erik pulls away again, and watches as Shaw groggily reaches up and scratches his neck where a little red dot marked his skin, barely bleeding. He would pass it off as a bug bite in the morning, and Erik would bite his tongue and hold back any words. 

After his second attempt, Erik thinks he is going insane. How long is he willing to wait? How much longer will he be able to go on like this, terrified and twitchy and jumping at every unusual sound? It was making him weak, this anticipation, and Erik hoped that Westchester would just fucking come already before he drives the knife into his own skull.

Now that he has hope, hope that he could escape the life he had been enduring (not living, because it certainly wasn’t that), every day that goes by while he’s still a prisoner in his own home is more draining than the last. This is why he made himself not have hope before--to protect himself.

Erik is disrupted in his plans by one thing.

Almost halfway through the year, in late spring-early summer, comes Anya’s birthday.

Erik wakes up that day already exhausted, already unwilling to move. Every year when this day rolled around he spent the entirety of it in heavy mourning, and it took so much out of him every time. 

Now he’d have to do this again in the earliest days of the next year, for Nina. Just thinking about it makes him feel worse.

Shaw, in his infinite mercy, takes pity on Erik and lets him grieve. There is no ceremony for a dead heiress, no. There is nothing of the sort. Shaw grants Erik only one thing, and that is a single candle to burn for her.

He’d prefer incense--there was a rich, heady smell of spice in the incense his parents used to burn for fallen loved ones that he remembers from his childhood, but Genosha under Shaw does not mourn for the dead. They move forward, away from their sadness and into victory.

Erik would be able to understand that if he thought that Shaw had the smallest modicum of care for other human beings inside him.

He takes the candle, though. If he’s allowed one thing, it’s better than none, so he takes it and saves it to burn at dusk. Shaw doesn’t call upon him as much as he usually does that day, but Erik thinks that it’s rather out of annoyance than care. Shaw never liked to be around him when he was down.

The children are quiet and respectful to him, which he is thankful for. As always, they ask him for stories about Anya, their big sister, and Erik gives them to them. She was like a ray of sunlight, a fresh spring breeze, the playful barking of a juvenile wolf, the shine on an emerald jewel. He had known Anya for the three precious years she had been alive, and he would forever hold on to her memories.

Erik tells Lorna and the twins about how Anya absolutely despised Shaw, how she’d make faces at him and stick her tongue out whenever he turned his back to her and Erik, and how she took delight in making him angry. 

It had terrified Erik at the time, and in the end had had consequences, but it made her so happy. She would have been a wisecracking, sarcastic woman when she grew up, if she did. A mixture, Erik thought, of himself and his mother. He saw a lot of himself and his family in his children, but in no one was his mother’s influence more prominent than in Anya.

He missed her terribly.

Erik had been a young 18-year-old when she was born, angry and uncontrolled and wild, and she had helped him calm down. She gave him something to hold onto while Shaw controlled his life. She had given him hope.

After her death, he had shut himself off and resigned himself to living the rest of his life in misery and suffering. The image of her neck, split open and red, would forever haunt his nightmares. 

Wanda cries when he talks about her--she had always been the most emotional of his children. Erik pulls her to his side and kisses the top of her head, and even though he never told them about why or how she died Wanda is so angry for her death, so enraged.

He sees himself in her anger, and it scares him.

“She is with us still,” He murmurs to her, and Pietro, and Lorna. “As long as we think of her she is with us.”

It’s not enough to heal him from the pain he still felt from her death, but it soothes the children, so it is acceptable.

When the sun is halfway below the horizon, Erik strikes a match and lights the candle, and the four of them watch the wax drip down to its base while the sky turns orange and pink. A thin trail of smoke drifts away into the air.

Erik promises Anya that when he gets out of Genosha, when he escapes, it will be for her. It will be for her, and for Nina, and for his parents, for everything he’s lost. His revenge will be heard in the laughter of his children.

\---

Shortly after Anya’s birthday, it happens.

One day Erik hears a puff of smoke from outside of the tent where he’s with the children and Shaw, and the alpha gets up to investigate. Azazel is there, looking uncharacteristically concerned, and speaks quietly in a heavily-accented voice into Shaw’s ear. Shaw’s expression doesn’t change until it does, contorting into something horrible and smug, and he gives Azazel some kind of short command and he disappears. Shaw strides back into the tent, grabs the helmet, and slides it on his head.

Erik looks at him quizzically. He doesn’t need to say anything for Shaw to know what he’s asking him.

“It’s going to be a busy day.” Shaw says, lips pulled back in a smile too wide, and he exits the tent, yelling for his soldiers to congregate. A warhorn can be heard blaring, and hoofbeats stamp the ground, and Erik walks over to the entrance to the tent to look out upon the Genoshan camp suddenly riling itself up as it...prepares for battle.

Warriors are putting armor on their horses, merchant’s tents are starting to be taken down, fires are being snuffed out. Westchester is upon them.

How far away, Erik didn’t know, but they were coming. Genosha is preparing for war.

His heart hammers in his chest. He had waited, and now they were finally coming. Must have been a hell of a lot of planning they were doing over there, to leave Erik in Shaw’s hands for so long, but they were finally coming and he would be able to get away.

Erik forces himself not to think about what would happen if Westchester didn’t win the fight, and lightly touches his chest where the key lay under fabric.

The day passes by agonizingly slowly despite how active the camp is. Shaw is barely seen, sometimes in glimpses with his confidants or with groups of warriors, but for the most part everyone that is not Erik has some kind of job to do, something to do to prepare.

Erik wonders how many Genoshans are going to die. 

The ones who called him omega-whore and the ones who worshipped Shaw like a god, he didn’t care about. It was the ones who were there at the feast that one night, the ones who talked to him like he was their equal and asked his opinion of important matters he cared about. No honest Genoshan should die in this battle, Erik thought, but he had no power over the hands of death and who it would take. Not while he was still Shaw’s omega.

That all would change soon. The key, the key. The key would free him from his bonds, and then Erik could be the god of death as far as he cared--whatever he had to be to kill Shaw. 

The vast majority of his people deserved to live, but there was only one man who _needed_ to die, and he was wearing an ugly helmet that kept him safe from the mind-walkers’ power.

The man who needed to die finally approached Erik at the end of the day, when the sun was setting and the camp seemingly had no intention of sleeping through the night. He was stiff in his posture when he stalked toward the tent, fists clenched and jaw set, and Erik, inside, felt that something was off in the same way it was on the day Nina died.

The only thing different this time was that Shaw was smiling.

“On the bed.” He orders Erik once he steps inside and takes the helmet off, slamming it on the chest next to their bed.

He had backed a few steps away from Shaw as he approached the tent, but at his command Erik obediently climbs onto the bed, heart already in his throat. What was happening. This wasn’t usually how it happened.

Erik doesn’t have enough time to close his mind off or tell the children (the children, who were still in the tent with them, he realizes in horror) not to look before Shaw is on him, shoving him so he lands on his back in the pillows and his breath leaves his lungs. He tries to turn his head and say something to Lorna and the twins, but Shaw grabs his chin and pulls his head back to center so their eyes meet. He’s hard in his pants already, Erik can feel it, and he looks terrifying.

“How about something before we all die tomorrow, eh?” Shaw hisses through his teeth, and Erik is rendered speechless. He was obviously being sarcastic, because he was a man who felt he could not die, but his tone of voice made Erik shiver. He must have been told something or seen something that made him think that Westchester was an actual threat, and that…

...And that he had to take what he could from his omega before he couldn’t anymore.

Erik pales. Shaw doesn’t need an answer from him, apparently, because he quickly shucks his pants off of his legs and lifts one of them to rest over his shoulder. He takes his cock out of his trousers, blushed red and long, and leans forward over Erik, who feels nothing but fear.

Fingers push inside of him mercilessly and Erik grits his teeth, digging his hands into the bedsheets, and Shaw squeezes his thigh with his free hand.

“Don’t be like that, boy.” He purrs, even as his fingers painfully scissor Erik open with no caution or care or love. “I’m just taking what’s mine.”

And without fanfare, he removes his hand from Erik and slides his cock into his hole down to the hilt, all in one continuous movement. 

Erik cries out but just as quickly bites down on his fist, drawing blood quickly. The taste of metal in his mouth lets his mind get distracted from how his children will be traumatized from having seen this, from how even though he still has the literal key to his salvation he will have used it too late, because Shaw is using him like a cheap slut.

Shaw slides his hips back, cock dragging painfully on Erik’s insides, and then slams them back in just as hard. His eyes flutter closed and he hiss-laughs, planting one hand on top of Erik’s thigh while the other holds the leg at his shoulder, and that’s how Shaw braces himself as he fucks Erik into the bed.

There was too little preparation, too much stimuli at once, and it hurt, god, did it hurt. Erik has his eyes screwed shut and blood dripping down the back of his hand as he’s repeatedly impaled upon Shaw’s cock, trying and failing not to make noise as weak cries are drawn out of him with every aching thrust. Shaw seems to take delight in his suffering, and it only makes him go faster, deeper, harder. 

Erik’s pain always made Shaw so very happy.

He derives no pleasure from this experience, even when he has managed to make himself come during previous times Shaw has fucked him. Right now it is just agony, just suffering, and more than anything it is shame.

The children shouldn’t have to see this.

His ears are ringing and he hears nothing from where the kids are huddled together on their side of the tent, but Erik hopes that they are least closing their eyes, covering their ears. They shouldn’t see him like this. They don’t deserve to.

Erik can’t tell how much time passes before Shaw comes. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but however long it was it felt like an eternity of endless, brutal fucking that will surely leave him bruised and sore for days to come. It does end, though, eventually, and it feels like a mercy. Shaw’s hips stutter and stop and heat fills Erik’s insides, thick and disgusting, and he covers his face with his bloody hand and heaves dry sobs into his skin.

Shaw seems satisfied, but amused. He pats Erik’s cheek before he pulls out, one final drag of his cock against him, and cleans himself off while he watches his omega weep.

“Let’s hope you don’t get killed and birth me a new heir, eh?” He croons, while come drips out of Erik as he lays on the bed silently. He tucks himself back into his pants, straightens his clothes, and grabs the helmet--when it’s slid on over his head again, Shaw leaves the tent, striding back out toward his troops as if nothing had happened.

The ringing leaves Erik’s ears slowly, and he comes back to his senses feeling debauched and revolting. His legs ache, everything aches, and come is splattered on his inner thighs and still trickling out of his hole.

He finds the strength to sit up, test out the movement of his limbs to see if everything still worked, and thankfully it did. He had escaped (nearly) unharmed from Shaw, for now, and hopefully that wouldn’t happen again.

Shaw was an unpredictable man, though--there was no telling what would happen if Genosha ended up winning the battle against Westchester and he wanted to celebrate.

There’s a soft sound by his bedside-- Erik slowly turns his head to see what it was, and finds Pietro standing next to him, hand outstretched and holding a clean rag of fabric. He looks...he doesn’t look scared, or disgusted, or angry. He looks blank.

He looks blank, and that’s what scares Erik.

He glances at the girls behind Pietro, and they look the same. He saw numbness. They were closing themselves off.

Just like he once did.

Erik takes a deep breath in and takes the rag from his son’s hand, carefully cleaning himself up since Shaw had swept out of the tent too quickly to assist him with anything. He never did.

As he wipes come from his skin and slowly redresses himself, Erik finds more tears falling from his eyes, and almost doesn’t notice them until one falls onto his hand.

It wasn’t from what Shaw did. No, it was from the realization that his children were growing up just like he did.

Even if Charles and Westchester could save them now, they would be forever damaged. Forever broken. Shaw ruined them, and even death wouldn’t be a fitting price to pay for it.

It takes Wanda and Lorna a while to approach him. Pietro was the bravest of the three, and had climbed up into bed beside Erik after he had recuperated enough to curl up against his side. Erik held onto him gratefully, muffling his misery into his silver hair.

The girls joined them, eventually, but they were silent and wary around Erik like he had been damaged. In a way, he had been, but seeing them so nervous around him was an unfamiliar feeling Erik found he hated. He pulls his daughters close to himself and hung onto them as well as Pietro, his anchors through his lifetime of hurt. 

None of them say anything but they stay like that for a while-- in their familiar pile that they congregated into whenever anything bad happened. Erik clings to his family and shuts off his mind.

As his thoughts whirl around inside his head, uncontrolled and chaotic, Erik decides somehow that when Shaw doesn’t notice he will free himself from his collar, rip that damned helmet off of his head, and send the nearest metal object through his skull as fast as he can. Shaw deserved a slow, painful death, but because he was so powerful Erik had no choice but to make it quick. The sight of Shaw’s body at his feet had to be satisfying enough for him to not care about whether he suffered or not.

He deserved to suffer for every minute, every day, every year that Erik did because of him, but he couldn’t. It was the universe’s last cruel joke to play on Erik and he despised it for making his life so miserable.

At this point, if he _did_ end up dying during the attack on Genosha, it would be a mercy killing. He was a wounded dog that would be grateful to be put down. Charles would adopt his children and everything would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the cliffhanger chapter! next time it's what we've all been waiting for.
> 
> i was listening to nicole kidman's cover of 'one day i'll fly away' from moulin rouge a lot while writing this, and i think it's kind of erik's theme for this fic? give it a listen if you have the time.
> 
> as always, please tell me what you think! comments make my daaaaay :]


	6. warmblood

ERIK

When the morning comes, it’s with a paralyzing, deafening silence.

No one slept through the night--not one soldier, or craftsman, not one parent or child. No one.

Genosha watched the moon rise and set and the sun replace it together while they waited for Westchesterian silver and blue to appear on the horizon.

Shaw’s helmet had been firmly seated on his head for the entire night, just in case, and even Erik had slipped his stolen knife into his belt just in case he was attacked off-guard.

How close Westchester would stick to Charles’ goals of protecting him and the children, he did not know. He didn’t even know if that was an official goal at all. It would do him well to have a weapon on his person.

While Shaw sits near the entrance of the tent and pours over maps on a table for a reason unbeknownst to Erik, he stays in the back and talks to his children.

They’re tired, and he disliked watching them stay up all night in fear of attack, but even when he had told them to at least try and rest they wouldn’t. Lorna is leaning heavily against Pietro, her eyes slipping closed every few minutes, but when they open again they’re filled with fear.

His voice is quiet as to not disturb Shaw; “If anyone comes into the tent you do not recognize, and if they mean to attack you, then-- Pietro. Pay attention.”

Pietro straightens up his posture from where it had been drooping and looks Erik blearily in the eye with a mumbled “Whuh-?”

Erik takes a breath in and restarts. “If anyone comes in the tent that you do not recognize, and if they mean to attack you, I want you to run.”

Instantly, his son’s eyes brighten. “Run? Run...like me? Or normal?”

“Like you, Pietro.” He confirms, the word _normal_ hurting his heart. “I want you to take your sisters and leave this place.”

All three kids seem to wake up a bit more, but they look troubled--they had been ever since the last evening.

Wanda speaks up softly- “What about you?”

Erik looks from them down to the carpeted floor of the tent, and then back up to meet his daughter’s eyes. Their safety was paramount, it took priority over his. If he ended up dying trying to kill Shaw, fine. But he wanted his children to escape.

“I will stay.” He says, and stops Wanda before she can argue with him. “It is more important I stay here, but you must escape.”

A quick look back at Shaw--he’s still occupied with his papers. Erik lowers his voice even further.

“There is unfinished business I have here with--with your father.” He hates calling Shaw that, but it’s what the children know him as. “I need to finish it before I join you, if it comes to that.”

“But I don’t want you to get hurt.” Lorna whispers, full of fatigue and full of fear. Erik smiles, brushes his knuckles against her soft cheek.

“I won’t.”

It’s a lie, but it’s the most important one he’s ever told.

“What if Azazel catches us?” Wanda tries again. That’s a good question, Erik thinks.

“If you’re with your brother, he will never be able to. You will be too fast.”

Pietro visibly glows with pride at that, but it’s bittersweet to witness.

“I’ll go to Westchester.” He says. Erik nods stiffly.

“And I’ll meet you there, if I need to.”

Lorna whines and slumps heavier against Pietro. “But we should go together…”

As much as Erik agrees with her, it’s not certain if they would. “We should, but we might not be able to. Remember, only leave if someone tries to hurt you. If you need to hurt them, do it.”

Three heads nod at him in unison, and Erik feels relief that there was some sort of back-up plan to fall on. He nods back. Looks at Shaw again. 

His voice is very small when he exhales and says “Okay.” In one breath. That short conversation tired him more than he thought it would.

“We’re staying here right now, though?” Asks Wanda.

Erik makes an affirmative sound. “Yes. You stay inside no matter what else. That’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe.”

Wanda nods again, more thoughtfully. She and her siblings all knew how much Erik prioritized their safety over everything, including his own. If he told them that staying in the tent was their best chance of staying safe and unharmed, then they would stay in the tent.

Noise comes from behind Erik, then, and he turns around to see Shaw standing and pulling a thick cloak out of a chest in the front of the tent. It’s heavy, dyed a deep red, and it swings around his legs as he fastens its collar around his neck. Now that he’s turned around Erik can see horses and their riders pacing in circles back and forth outside, he can hear the murmur of hundreds of Genoshans.

For a moment, Erik feels brave enough and crazy enough to speak to Shaw after what had happened the previous day. “Is it time?”

Shaw glances back at him, and smirks. Erik can see him thinking. “For Westchester to fall? Absolutely.”

With that, he leaves the tent and Erik and the kids to themselves, and a shiver runs down Erik’s spine. There was something about Shaw’s unfounded, unwavering confidence that managed to unnerve him every time he witnessed it.

With every second that passed on the way to Shaw’s demise, Erik’s vision became more tunneled and his chest became tighter. Death would most definitely visit Genosha today, he thought, and if he had to ensure that it took Shaw he’d be willing to drag himself into the darkness along with his tormentor.

He stands on aching legs and makes his way to the entrance of the tent. Through the flaps, Erik sees lines of warriors on horseback filing into place around the border of camp, congregating most densely on the southern side. He hadn’t seen such a display in years, since the massacre at the river, and as with each time he witnessed Genosha’s military glory he felt a pang of melancholy in his heart for how he longed to be up on a horse at the head of the crowd.

Shaw is up there instead, and so are Emma, Azazel, and Janos. Emma in white, Azazel in burgundy, Janos in purple. They make a staggering display of power and intimidation, but none of them have what it takes to be a good leader.

It won’t be long now, Erik assumes, before Westchester is upon them.

He returns to the back of the tent. In the calm before the storm, he wants to be close to his children, in case he doesn’t survive the day. If he feels it’s necessary, he wants to tell them goodbye.

Wanda loops her arms tight around Erik’s waist when he sits down between her and Pietro, and he covers her with one of his in return. He could practically feel her worry seeping into his clothes, his skin, and all he could think was that she was too young to worry over him like his mother did.

What has he done to these children?

“Are you going to leave?” Wanda murmurs, her cheek smushed into his chest. She sounds like she doesn’t want to know his answer--Erik knows she knows what it’s going to be.

“Yes.” He tells her gently. “But hopefully I will come back.”

She makes a soft, pained sound. Hopefully wasn’t enough, but it was the truth, and Erik wasn’t often in the business of lying to his children.

“He won’t get hurt, he promised.” Lorna answers her sister, and Erik hums in agreement. He did say that, didn’t he.

None of them believe him.

Erik knows the time they have left in relative peace is short--from here on out he has only a vague idea of what might happen, and the future is left to the hands of fate. He could die.

He wants to use this peace to love his family if it will be the last he will ever experience. 

Shaw is gone, the yelling and the rumbling of hoofbeats outside has faded into a low drone, and Erik is warm, surrounded by everything he loves. 

He closes his eyes--it is hard to speak.

“I want you to know,” He begins, although it is weak. He has no script; no practice. He never thought to ponder what his last words to his children would be until now. “That you three mean the world to me.”

A pause.

“No, that’s not just it. Not just the world. You are everything to me. You are…”

He trails off, looks up at the ceiling of the tent.

“...I have never loved anything so fiercely, so intensely, and with such great passion than how I have loved you.”

“Papa…” Lorna whispers, looking up at him with watery blue-green eyes.

Erik continues. “Despite the circumstances of your birth I am thankful every day that all three of you are alive. The unrefined, raw power that I’ve seen each of you utilize in your own way is...it’s staggeringly beautiful, and I feel honored that I was able to give you life to use it.”

The children all stare up at him, enraptured. Erik tilts his head back slightly, still looking up, forward.

“Never think of Sebastian as your father, because he is not. You deserve so much better than his best, and you deserve better than me.” He says, and his voice is beginning to strain.

“Better than you…?” Pietro questions, so quiet it was like he was thinking out loud rather than speaking.

“You don’t deserve to have a prisoner for a dam.”

Wanda hugs him tighter. “But you’re not--”

“I am.” Erik sighs, finally dropping his head to look down upon her crown of curled, dark hair. “I would not be alive if not for the three of you. This is not a life I live, it is simply an existence. And I don’t live it--I survive it. You are everything good I have to hold onto.”

A rattling breath in.

“So...precious. More precious than anything. I cannot describe in words the feeling I experience when I see any of you smile. It is…” Erik shakes his head minutely as he wracks his brain to try and come up with a definition for what he felt.

“...It’s relief. Relief, or something like it. I feel free when you are happy.”

Wanda sniffs. Pietro ducks his head down and pulls Erik’s other arm around his and Lorna’s shoulders.

“Why are you telling us all of this stuff?” The boy says weakly.

Erik thinks.

“Just in case.” He says, and doesn’t elaborate, but the children know what he means anyway.

Erik takes a deep breath in and lets it out, reaching over and brushing a tear from under Wanda’s eye with the pad of his thumb. Her skin was still so baby-soft.

“I want you to know that I love you.” He murmurs, and she sobs once.

Erik continues- “I love you three with my entire body, mind, and soul. I have no doubts you will go on to do great things when you grow up. I am so happy you are alive.”

Gods above, he was so happy they were still alive.

“If you have to leave camp, or if I don’t come back when I leave…”

And Erik stops. What would they do, if or when he dies? 

Pietro had a good idea. Erik still held that flaming anger in his heart, but…

“...Go to Westchester. To King Xavier. He will take care of you if I cannot.” He exhales.

Through his remaining anger towards Charles, he couldn’t deny that the young king was a good man at heart, kind and considerate. Charles was so very fond of Erik’s children he didn’t doubt he’d take them in if they showed up at his gates. He had to trust in that belief, if not anything else.

Nina paid for Charles’ ignorance, but that’s what it was: ignorance. He didn’t know.

Erik would never forgive him.

But, deep in his heart, he trusted Charles, and he knew he was good. He knew he would take good care of Lorna and the twins if they were orphaned.

“No matter what, I will ensure your safety.” He says quietly, voice weak and tired of speaking such things. “I will ensure that you live and keep living.”

They’re all quiet for a minute. Erik doesn’t know what else to say, and the children have seemingly lost their motivation to question him or argue with him. The only sounds in the tent are the flapping of thick fabric and the unsteady, hitching breaths of those who are weeping. It hurts him, but he’s glad he said it. Just in case.

Erik is not confident he will live until sunset, but he is more confident than anything that his children will.

The family’s reverie is broken by the blaring of the warhorn again, and the drone of war gets louder. Erik’s head snaps up and he looks outside to see the lines of warriors moving forward, drawing their swords and nocking arrows in their bows. The long note produced by the warhorn signifies that battle is imminent--so this is it, he thinks, his world is about to change forever.

He’s conflicted--on the one hand, leading Genosha into war was in his blood, as it was his birthright. On the other hand...this war was being fought for him.

Genosha was his enemy in this situation, the thought of which was incomprehensible. Even through Shaw’s tyrannical rule, Erik had stayed loyal to his kingdom for his entire life and mourned the glory that it used to have when his parents were still alive. It was hard to root for Westchester’s victory over his people, even though he was a prisoner on his own land.

Erik doesn’t know what to think. He longs to be on a horse leading the charge, but he imagines himself among Westchester’s colors instead of Genosha’s.

War was senseless and manipulative and cruel. The truth was that Erik was on no one’s side in this battle--he was on his own side.

Genosha had a ruler that needed to be killed. Westchester had innocents to liberate and a feud to end. Erik knew his job, and he planned to complete it.

Slowly rising, Erik extends a placating ‘stay here’ hand to the children, and creeps toward the entrance to the tent. Its flaps are half closed, and he kneels down on his haunches to watch the border to camp as red and gold congregate in formation.

The hills on the horizon are silent, until they are not. Shadows descend their slopes with the sun behind them, hundreds upon hundreds of men on foot and on steed, and they never seem to end.

Erik is enthralled by the sheer number of Westchesterians that approach the camp. When they get closer he can see that many of their soldiers do not know how to handle a horse well, and that many of them are young. Inexperienced. What they have in numbers Genosha has in skill and training--perhaps it will turn out to be a fair fight.

Everything inside of him is tight, tense. Just like the horses nervously scuffing their hooves on the grass outside, he is restless, waiting for the moment that Genosha decides to charge forward and meet the droves of Westchesterians with steel and flesh. Erik itched to be outside, but he had young ones to protect while he was able, and Shaw was not ready to be killed yet. The key hangs around his neck, still, swaying from side to side like the pendulum of fate.

He holds his breath as blue draws ever nearer to red, and then stops a ways away. Westchester is a sea of soldiers, and Genosha just a lake, but it’s a lake with predators in it, with sharp teeth and poison who have killed before and will kill again. It’s sharks against minnows, and even though they might not get them all Erik knows Westchester will suffer heavy losses today.

He sees deep blue skin and red hair in the distance, on the frontlines of Westchester’s army. Raven.

And next to her, in a midnight blue cloak and silver helm, Erik sees blue eyes peer out from under brown hair and looks upon Charles Xavier for the first time in a very long while.

He can’t see if they are speaking at all, giving orders to their troops or murmuring to each other, but they are stopped in front of Genosha. He can imagine Charles pushing for one last attempt at civility, to speak instead of kill, but it won’t happen. Turning back now would be a dishonor for his kingdom. 

Erik has stopped breathing, and the camp and fields around it are silent. Even the buzzing cicadas have gone quiet in anticipation, even the wind has stopped rustling the tall grasses. Mother nature is waiting for blood to be spilled.

He sees Shaw’s arm rise, sword in hand, above the heads of Genoshan warriors. His helmet is gleaming in the sunlight.

Shaw thrusts his arm forward with a roar that sounds absolutely inhuman, and Genosha, like an avalanche, descends upon their enemy with a divine fury.

When they go, Westchester starts too, and the two armies sweep towards each other in waves. The silence from moments before has been replaced with a deafening howl, as people yell and horses scream and metal clangs and arrows meet their marks.

Almost immediately, men start to drop. From the moment the two frontlines met, the overzealous among them rushed into battle headfirst, and paid the price for their confidence with their lives. Blue and red mix together as the militaries congregate into one group, rushing forward, forever forward, and the screams of the injured and dying assault Erik’s ears when he hears them.

He continues to watch, instead of join, hands and head buzzing with the kind of adrenaline one gets from witnessing war. When he was a boy, his father regaled him with tales of battle and assured him that one day, he too would cleave his enemies’ heads from their bodies with his sword. When his gift manifested, his parents were confident they had a strong and intimidating heir that would make a good king after they were gone.

Now, confined to his tent while the action took place without him, Erik closed his eyes for a second and apologized to his father silently. Killing Shaw alone wouldn’t be nearly the same.

Before long, blood and bodies cover the ground outside, staining the yellow grass a dark brown-red. Westchester’s blue is seen in tatters alongside Genosha’s red, only equal in death. Erik watches his warriors get gutted, decapitated, slashed open, and then watches the same happen to Westchester’s soldiers. They were both working their way through the ranks to the rulers, getting rid of the troops so they could kill the ones who gave the orders to attack. Erik didn’t know who would reach who first.

He can see Janos unleash his harsh winds upon Westchester, throwing them back by hundreds of feet. He sees Azazel and his red smoke appearing and disappearing in Westchester’s battalions, slitting the throats of three soldiers at a time before returning to his horse that had never stopped galloping. Ripples of energy make the air shift visibly as Shaw takes everything that’s thrown at him and unleashes it back toward his enemies, literally disintegrating soldiers with weaker human bodies into particles of white light. The vast majority of Genoshans and Westchesterians were ungifted, so the ones _with_ the gifts easily could kill tens of men at a time.

For every one man a Genoshan kills, five more come forward. Erik knew the warriors were skilled but it was easy to see that the sheer numbers they were going up against were overwhelming.

From Westchester’s side, Erik sees something similar but different. The gifted are cutting down enemy warriors like a sickle through grass.

He sees the ripple of blue into tawny brown as Raven takes the guise of a felled soldier and rides through Genosha’s ranks undetected. He sees bright red beams of energy cut down an entire troop of Genoshans at one time, a great blue beast pouncing on warriors atop their horses and dragging them off to get trampled and slaughtered, and a man with metal claws sticking out of his knuckles charge Shaw in an attempt to separate him from the group.

Erik pays attention to him the most.

He had no idea who the clawed man was--if he was brave or stupid enough to go up against Shaw directly, he must have some sort of power more intimidating than the claws alone, surely. He was likely close to Charles because he was gifted, and so perhaps Charles had told him to attack Shaw directly.

Erik looks for the deep blue cloak in the crowd, but can’t see it. Charles was powerful, he knew, but not invincible. He didn’t want him to die.

Without Charles around to give orders, the clawed man rounds on Shaw again and again, looking more like he’d rather be running around on foot than on a horse. He and Shaw are circling each other so closely at the edge of the fray they’re almost nose to nose, and Erik thinks the clawed man actually _growls_ at him.

Shaw is striking at him, but the swings of his sword seem calculated, experimental. Erik looks closer, and through the shredded leather the clawed man is wearing he sees bloody wounds stitch together into smooth skin in a matter of seconds.

That was it, he thinks, that’s why Charles trusts him to attack Shaw. He can’t die.

The clawed man obviously is experienced in battle by the way he fights, with his claws instead of any handheld weapon, and Shaw seems almost surprised by how he’s keeping up. He’s a good fighter to use to get him away from the rest of the group because he can occupy him intensely enough for Shaw to falter. That way, when he’s isolated enough, Charles and his generals can go in for the kill--or rather, Erik can.

Raven and Charles better have remembered what he told them. Let the soldiers do what they want, but leave the tyrant to him.

His attention is momentarily drawn away from Shaw and the clawed man when he sees Charles, alive and well, emerge from the group on his horse and then charge back in. He rides a white stallion, not as dark as the one Pietro had startled so long ago but just as wild. His cloak floats behind him as he turns on a dime and sweeps through the crowd, sword in hand. He fights with a controlled grace that Erik can only assume is the result of years of strict training.

Warriors on foot fall to Charles’ steel as he swiftly cuts them down. They fall down to the ground, dead, immediately after he strikes them. It makes sense that Charles would want someone to have a quick death when he killed them--cruelty was not in his nature. He is extremely skilled to be so precise in his slaughter, so exact. There is something beautiful in the way Westchesterians fight, like a dance.

Erik can’t lie. Charles is beautiful in battle.

When he meant to kill someone, there was planning and specificity in it. It was obvious Charles thought about every movement he made, of his arm and of his horse.

When he didn’t mean to kill someone, it was with good intentions and a caring heart and a letter.

Erik shook his head, clearing it of thoughts about Charles and his elegance.

A horse’s scream swiftly brought him back to reality, and he snapped his eyes over to where he heard it come from to see the clawed man and Shaw being joined by a third: the blue beast. It had raked its claws down Shaw’s horse’s flank and it had fallen clumsily to the ground, taking Shaw with it. More than anything, Shaw hated being embarrassed, so the smile Erik felt occupying his lips he felt was was more than justified.

The beast lept on Shaw and dragged him out of his saddle when it could reach him, but couldn’t get a good grip on him as Shaw easily pulled its paws off of him and shoved it away, making it stumble back a few yards. The clawed man on his horse, still standing, came in-between them, pushing Shaw further away from the crowd on foot.

Erik didn’t blink. His eyes were fully trained on Shaw as he slowly traveled farther and farther away from the fray. His two adversaries slowly corralled him back, and Erik wondered why he wasn’t fighting them. 

Maybe it was pride, or maybe it was just foolish confidence.

Shaw stops and just--just _stands_ there, facing the two Westchesterians with his helmet still on and his expression still annoyingly smug. Erik’s heartbeat started to race.

Charles exited the crowd again when the clawed man’s horse stopped moving, riding over to his two confidants to look upon Shaw. Communication must be easy between him and his men due to his telepathy, Erik assumes, and sure enough he sees Charles look worriedly back and forth between the beast and the clawed man when he finally sees Shaw in full.

He circles his white horse around him once, twice, obviously anxious. The helmet was protecting Shaw from Charles, and any physical attack he was still invincible to. A telepath could do nothing to make him weak or vulnerable while he still had it on.

A fourth Westchesterian joins them from the side, then, a young woman.

She has long, flaming red hair, and porcelain skin. She’s young, and wearing minimal armor, and Erik has no idea why she’s here. He watches her ride up next to Charles, and he watches their lips move as they mutter to each other and intermittently glance back at Shaw, who seems smug. Smug as always.

He knows, now. If Shaw was attacked he would only get his attackers hurt, and if they were planning for Charles to somehow control his mind and stop him their plan was now disrupted. They were stuck.

Shaw twiddles his thumbs, interlocked behind his back, and rocks back and forth on his heels just slightly. So relaxed, so nonchalant, so very convinced that Westchester could do nothing to him.

He doesn’t know they have an ace in the hole.

Hell, _Westchester_ doesn’t know they have an ace in the hole.

They did have one, god damn it, and his last name was _Lehnsherr._

Erik’s hands start to shake. Now was the time.

He reaches into the collar of his tunic and slowly pulls out the key on its leather cord, watching it shimmer in the light. It was tarnished and worn, but it was different from all the other keys Janos had possessed, so it had to be the one.

Erik wouldn’t know for sure until he put it in the lock of his collar--it seemed like a monumental task, testing the key out. It was what his fate hung on.

Key in hand, he glances up toward the battlefield, and then back inside to his children, watching from farther away but just as attentively. 

“Remember what I told you?” He asks them, voice too quiet.

They nod. Pietro says yes.

Erik nods once. “Good.” And with a fierce tug, he snaps the leather cord in half and frees the key from his neck. The sound is deafening to his ears.

While the key slips in sweaty palms Erik raises his arms so his hands could reach the back of his neck, feels around with his fingers to find the lock and its keyhole, and after a few tries he slots the key into it right side up.

His eyes slip closed. Nothing has ever been more important than this moment.

Erik turns the key to the right. It stops once it’s gone a full 90 degrees, and he hears a very soft ‘click’.

He lets go of the collar, and it along with the key falls onto the carpet with an unceremonious thunk.

One of the children gasps a shocked breath in.

It starts slow at first, the return. It starts slow, like a soft buzz, but it soon grows into a roaring wave, filling up every corner of Erik’s mind and possessing every inch of his body like he was electrified.

The metal sings for him once again, and Erik can’t keep his jaw from dropping open from hearing it.

He can feel everything. The lantern sitting in the corner of the tent, the clasps on the chests, the buckle on his belt, Wanda’s earrings, the joint supports on the beds, the little nails in the soles of his boots. The battlefield outside is thick with hardened steel and plate metal and every clang of a sword against sword echoes in Erik’s soul. Below it all, there is a deep rumble, below him and below the grass and below the dirt, below the bedrock. The metal welcomes Erik back, embraces him, missed him.

He slowly stands, feeling like a boy overwhelmed with power again, and stumbles. He holds on to a post holding the tent up and tries to catch his breath.

It’s so hard to control. Erik had forgotten how hard it was to control, to finesse, to articulate. Metal was so interwoven into everything that made up his world, it was hard to focus on any one thing. He knew this would happen, if he got the collar off, but there was no way for him to prepare. He was running blind from here on out.

He tries to rely on muscle memory, closes his eyes and extends his reach out as far as he can to the tents, the fields, and what’s beyond it. He had to rid Shaw of his helmet, but first he had to be able to control it.

Erik searches through swords and stirrups and armor plating for the helmet, finds other helms along the way but none of them feel right.

When he finally finds what he’s looking for, it’s more than obvious that he’s landed on the right thing, because Shaw’s helmet feels heavy and dense and poisonous in a way metal should not feel. Nothing else outside is like it. 

Good, Erik thinks, good. He found it. Now he knew what it felt like, and how hard he’d have to tug to get it away from Shaw. He’s making progress.

It all feels too good to be true.

Erik raises his hand, palm out in front of him, and tries something.

The lantern in the tent shudders, vibrates, and then unsteadily floats up into the air. It stays hovering at the same level of his hand, held up by its metal frame. 

Erik swallows, and then clenches his fist, and the lantern crumples violently into a ball, sending crushed granules of glass from its panes falling to the ground like glittering snow. It doesn’t resemble anything like a lantern anymore, smushed wax trapped inside a deformed metal prison, and that amount of control is enough for Erik.

His powers are back. His powers are back, and he’s going to kill Shaw.

He lowers his fist, looks up at his beloved children one last time, and then turns to the entrance of the tent.

The roar of the battlefield sounds like a barely-there buzzing of a fly now compared to the hum of the metal around him when he steps outside. He takes one step forward into the grass, then another, and then another and another until he’s taking long, purposeful strides across the bloody battlefield toward where his tormentor awaits.

He’s overflowing with new power, older and wiser and more broken and bruised than he was when he had it last, but for the first time in decades Erik feels _alive,_ and it’s definitely noticed.

Charles lifts his head up from where he had been facing the fiery-haired girl and looks at Erik approaching him and his group, mouth open in surprise. He says nothing, but in his eyes Erik can see he’s awe-stricken.

The girl looks next, confused until realization passes over her face, and the clawed man and the beast follow her gaze toward him. None of them say anything, they just. Look.

Figures on horses ride out of the crowd--it’s Raven and Azazel, Emma and Janos, here to watch the showdown between Charles and Shaw but seeing Erik uncollared and empowered instead. They pull up short before him, keeping his path to Shaw clear. They are all below him in this moment, all yielding to him. Power is pulsing out of him in waves, like an immensely forceful magnetic field.

Shaw is the last to look. He leisurely turns around on his heel, looking at Erik from over his shoulder with an eyebrow raised, and when he sees him he smiles, with teeth still too white and and skin too smooth.

“Erik.” He says, almost like a greeting. His eyes flicker down to Erik’s bare neck and back up again. “How nice to see you.”

Erik keeps walking. Shaw’s speaking quietly but his voice is worming its way deep into Erik’s skull. He shakes it off.

Because he doesn’t answer, Shaw gets irritated. He licks his lips and his smile gets tight. “So you took off the collar. Good job. I always knew you’d find a way- I’m so proud of you.”

Erik says nothing.

Shaw’s lip twitches.

“Why don’t you go back to the tent. You shouldn’t leave the children alone at a time like this, and I don’t want you getting hurt.” He says, every word over pronunciated just enough to be a threat.

Erik is close to Shaw now, and he keeps walking, but Shaw’s words finally get a reaction out of him. 

His face contorts into something terrible, something vengeful and furious. He thrusts his hand out toward Shaw’s helmet and with a strangled roar he snaps his arm back, taking the helmet with the movement and throwing it far, far away. He feels it fly away from him, from the battle, from camp, from everything.

Shaw reflexively jolts forward and reaches up to grab it even though it is miles gone, but then Charles jabs his fingers to his temple and cries out harshly, and he freezes.

Literally, he freezes. Shaw stops moving, blinking, breathing. His arm outstretched, like some kind of statue.

The fiery-haired girl has her hands out in the air, next to Charles, who is beginning to sweat from the effort he’s putting out to keep Shaw in place, and her eyes are glowing orange. The both of them are keeping Shaw in his place so that he may be killed, but none of Charles’ men are moving.

The clawed man hesitates, with the daggers from his knuckles still sticking out of his skin. Erik glares at him, and they slide back into his bones with a sickening _snikt._

He stops walking and stands before Shaw, vibrating with anger and with righteous ferocity. Everyone knows this is his kill.

Erik is eye to eye with Shaw, now. They were practically the same height--yet he had never noticed. Shaw always seemed too far above him, so much bigger, so much more. But now more. Now he is just a cowardly, greedy man, hungry for power at the expense of others and nothing else. 

And he is going to meet his maker. Or rather, his creation.

Shaw turned Erik into the vengeful wraith he has become, and now he is going to die for it.

Without breaking eye contact with the frozen Shaw, Erik raises his hand into the air at his side. A moment of silence passes, and then the key to his collar zips into his hand, meeting his skin hard. Erik has a knife in his belt, but…he didn’t want to use it anymore.

He stays motionless as the key floats up into the air above his hand and he turns his palm horizontally, still looking into Shaw’s old eyes as the key melts into a liquid mass of metal, deforming and then reforming until Erik has roughly fashioned it into a murky brown-green-gold spike, sharp as a thorn on either end and five times as dense.

“I’ve waited so long for this.” Erik whispers, his breath a growl. “This isn’t for Genosha. Or Westchester. Not for me, not for Xavier. Do you know what I want from you, Sebastian?”

Even in his stillness, Shaw seems to be questioning Erik. He wants an answer.

Erik clenches his jaw and bares his sharpest grin at Shaw, all teeth and all rage.

“I want my mother back, you son of a bitch.”

And with a full-body jerk and a whiplike movement of his arm, he shoots the spike rocketing at an impossible speed straight through Shaw’s forehead.

It explodes viscerally out of the back of his skull, sending blood splattering onto the clawed man and the beast behind him.

Charles screams.

Erik’s eyes follow Shaw’s body as Charles relinquishes his control over it and it goes toppling ungainly to the ground, landing as a heap of limbs and wrinkled fabric with blood and brain matter oozing out of its cranium. He stares at the red puddle spreading across the grass and steps back when it threatens to dirty his boots.

He looks up, and Charles is bowed over his horse, breathing hard and with his hands dug into his hair. Still, no one has spoken, and the king’s harsh breathing is the only sound heard over the far away din of the war. There’s no reason to fight anymore.

Azazel, on Erik’s left, disappears. Raven turns her horse around and follows him, riding back into the crowd--presumably to tell her troops to fall back, and Azazel the same.

The young woman with Charles is holding him gently by the arm, speaking softly under her breath in worried tones. 

Erik feels like he’s watching everything from outside of his body. He doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real.

Numbly, he turns his head and looks back toward the tent. Three little faces poke out from between the tent flaps, staring with wide, haunted eyes.

He looks back at Charles, focuses on him for real. He’s waving the girl off, insisting he’s fine, but Erik can see that being in Shaw’s mind when he died certainly took more than a few years off of his life. He stands tall, and strong, and waits for Charles to speak. He knows he’ll have something to say.

Charles beckons the clawed man over to help him get off of his horse, and once he’s half-clambered half-dragged to his feet on the grass he asks for his cane. It was strapped to his steed’s side, turns out, and the clawed man slides it out of its leather bindings and hands it to him. Charles leans on it gratefully as he approaches Erik, cautiously circling around Shaw’s corpse.

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in months.

Erik remembers how happy Charles had made him feel during and immediately after the banquet, when they had talked about silly things and Charles had charmed him with his childlike stubbornness and determination to someday get him out of Genosha. 

After the letter...his feelings had changed. 

Now, Erik didn’t know how he felt about Charles at all. If there was one thing he knew for sure, though, is that Nina’s death still weighed heavily in his mind against a backdrop of Charles’ perfect penmanship.

Charles looks up at him when they’re face-to-face once again, and has insurmountable longing in his eyes when he speaks.

“Erik, I…” He starts, then trails off. When he clears his throat lightly and starts again, it is in a much more professional tone.

“I would like to thank you for the great duty you have done your kingdom as well as mine. We were at a loss for what to do, our entire battle plan unsteadied, and if it weren’t for you Shaw would have lived to cause pain for another day.”

He shakes his head minutely, expression turning troubled by a slight knitting of the brows and a tightening of the lips. “I...I missed you.”

Erik frowns.

Charles continues- “I missed you, and I hope that now, now that you and your children are free, that you can find a way to live a happy life away from what you have suffered thus far.”

He looks back toward his men, seemingly searching for something or someone, before meeting Erik’s gaze again, this time less confident than he had been moments before.

“If you would like, I...bugger, this is hard to put in words. If you would like, you and yours can stay in Westchester for a while, as long as you desire, if you would like to leave Genosha temporarily or even permanently. I would be happy to welcome you as esteemed citizens in my kingdom, and--and if you would like to return here, someday, I would like to assist you in your retaking of your throne as much as I am able.”

Erik feels heat rising in his chest, anger and displeasure rolled into one.

“But you may stay here, of course. It is only a suggestion. You must have many plans now that you are heir to the throne once again--”

He is cut off by Erik’s flick of the wrist flinging his cane away and making him stumble, and by his subsequent grasp on his collar that keeps him upright only by way of Erik’s hands. He drags Charles up to his feet physically, looking into his fearful yet unyielding gaze.

Every one of Charles’ allies starts forward, advancing toward Erik with the goal of getting his hands off their king, but he jerks his chin to the side and the three of them all slide back multiple feet into the grass, pushed back by the metal in their clothing and armor.

Erik remembers that he is very, very powerful. They would do well not to try and interfere now that he isn’t shackled and imprisoned and beaten down. From the surprised stares he gets, Erik assumes they’ve realized that.

“Shut up about your charity.” He hisses. “I want nothing from you and I don’t want to take anything from you. You do not get to choose what’s best for me, what I should do, what my future will be.”

What he doesn’t mention is that Charles made a few offers that actually sounded promising, but the anger had bubbled up to the surface and Erik let it overflow over everything else.

“You…” He takes a breath in, looking at Charles incredulously. “You got my daughter killed, you idiot of a man. I will _never_ forget that. You may not have meant it, but you caused it, and you should’ve had the _sense_ to _think_ before sending me, Shaw’s prisoner omega, any kind of correspondence.”

Charles’ expression crumples at that. He knew Erik was speaking the truth.

“I could have killed Shaw without help from you. I had a plan of my own. I didn’t need a war to end my suffering, you just made it easier for me. I am my own man, Charles, and you need to _know that._ You need to stop. Trying. To fix me.”

Charles says nothing for a good minute after he finishes his tirade, but his devastated expression says enough. Erik has to reign himself in and remind himself that Charles had only ever had good intentions, but those good intentions did not manifest themselves in helpful ways and Charles was not good at letting his head lead his path instead of his heart. He cared too much, is what he did.

And he obviously cared now. Charles has tears glittering in his blue eyes, and he’s pressing his lips together in an attempt to hold a stable expression, but despite it he lifts a hand and hesitantly, fearfully brushes the pads of his fingers against Erik’s cheek, under his eye.

The softness of his skin makes Erik reel for a second, and his grip on Charles’ collar loosens before it tightens again.

Charles speaks with shaking breath-- “I had absolutely no idea what would be caused by my letter. You were right.”-- and Erik feels something foreign wiggle its way into his mind, worming through the hairline fractures in his shields and gently touching his thoughts. It was guilt, genuine and apologetic and pure, trickling into him like raindrops off of a roof. Charles felt, and he felt so much that even Erik could feel it.

“Nothing I can do will ever make up for what I caused. I know that.” He says breathlessly, and Erik’s expression turns hollow. 

“You have every right to be angry with me.” Charles whispers. 

His emotion is pooling in Erik’s mind, in a puddle that’s slowly growing larger, and Erik feels sorry for Charles, and feels sorry for himself, and feels sorry that they had to meet like they did. In another life things could have been so much easier, but not in this one.

“Please.” Charles breathes. “Please, believe me.”

Erik believes him.

His hands lower, and Charles’ knees buckle when his boots touch the ground. Erik stares him down resolutely, distrustingly, but with a resigned trust that makes him look tired.

“I don’t want to live here in camp.” He murmurs, all the bite gone from his voice. “Someday I want to return, but…”

His eyes flick to the side, then back to Charles’ blue. “...But right now, I’m repulsed by this place.”

Charles nods silently. Everything about Genosha will dredge up bad memories if Erik stays here any longer. It was his home, but he couldn’t remain.

“I want my children to live safely.” He says, gaze steely cold as he directs it at Charles. “In Westchester, they can.”

A breath in.

“I will come with you, but not because I forgive you. I trust you, but I do not forgive you. I will go so that my family can be safe.”

“Yes,” Charles breathes, visibly enthralled by him. “Of course.”

And then he sucks another breath in forcefully through barely parted lips, and has the grace to look embarrassed when he says, “May I please have my cane back.”

Erik sighs, and lets Charles go, floating his cane back over into his hand with just the barest twitch of his finger. The king leans on it heavily and lifts his free hand to massage his throat where the fabric of his collar had been rubbing against it. He doesn’t say another word to Erik, just looks at him.

Erik turns around, back to the tent, where the children are still watching. He wonders how much they saw.

He nods his head, motions them to come out with his hand held low at his side, and they emerge onto the grass with Wanda in front of her twin and little sister.

They move slowly, cautiously at first. When no one approaches them or moves toward them Pietro grabs his siblings and zips over to Erik in the blink of an eye, and then Erik has three small bodies hugging him around his waist and clinging to his legs. A low chuckle comes from somewhere behind him, but he doesn’t look to see who produced it.

Pietro has his cheek pressed against Erik’s hip when he looks up and asks, “No running?”

Erik shakes his head. “No running.”

A slender hand touches his shoulder softly, then, and Erik jerks. The hand retreats just as quickly, and he sees that it was the young maiden who was with Charles that has approached him. She looks kind, but naïvety shines in her young eyes. She hasn’t seen much outside Westchester’s walls, Erik is sure of it.

“Hello, your highness.” She greets him, and Erik is polite enough not to scoff at her. “I’m Jean.”

“I need no titling.” Erik insists. “I don’t feel much like royalty.”

She nods. “Erik, then. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Has she? If she was close to Charles, then she probably has, Erik realizes. Had he been lamenting about his love for an omega prisoner to his closest confidants all this time? He was a bleeding heart.

“If you are coming with us,” Jean continues. “Is there anything here in camp that you would like to bring? Anything you would like to do?”

Erik looks around, around the perimeter of camp to the hills and back again. The light of day is slowly beginning to wane as the sun drifts further east, and now that the order had been given to cease fighting the battlefield had adopted a mournful silence. There were field medics tending to injured soldiers, and there were bodies being loaded into wagons for transportation back to Westchester. Weapons and dead horses and bloody viscera littered the ground.

Erik and the children had little of personal value in the late king’s tent- there were books, toys that the children used to play with but not anymore, clothes. It was mostly Shaw’s possessions that remained, and Erik wanted none of them.

At the base of the hills sat the graveyard, where Nina’s body still lay. Anya’s was at another campsite from years past, left an eternity ago. Erik’s parents were at yet another. 

Erik feared if he went to say goodbye to his youngest daughter, he would never leave.

He looks back at Jean. “No. There is nothing left for me here.”

She nods, understanding. Erik didn’t think she’d want to take anything from this place if she were him.

\------

Charles, after convincing Raven to ride with the rest of her military back to Westchester, lets Erik and the kids join him in his carriage. It’s a delicate, ostentatious little thing, and Erik is just slightly disgusted by it, but it means rest so he relents and climbs inside.

The children love it, of course. It’s plush and beautiful on the inside, nothing like the back of a horse. They wonder about the stallions and the mare they had been riding on for months now, and ask Erik what will become of their home, but he doesn’t know.

Luckily for him, Charles enters the carriage and once he sits down he answers all the questions the children ask.

The horses will stay in Genosha. In this period of time without a leader, Westchester will place a substitute ruler at the head of the kingdom and communicate with them regularly to make sure everything’s holding up well enough. Emma is being taken as a prisoner in Westchester while Azazel and Janos are left behind, allowed to work with the replacement under strict negotiations.

Wanda sits next to Charles while Pietro, Lorna (who was now free of her collar), and Erik sit across from them. She asks him what is going to happen to her and her family now, and Charles gives her a radiant smile.

“You’re coming to live in my castle.” He tells her, and her eyes light up.

“Will we be able to do whatever we want?”

“Within reason, my dear.” Charles answers good-naturedly, and even though Erik bristles he controls himself. The children liked Charles, so he wouldn’t ruin anyone’s fun just yet. They deserved a rest and relief after everything that had happened.

Wanda worries her lip for a second, and then asks Charles one more question: “Is papa going to get hurt again?”

Charles looks from her to Erik shortly, and answers while the both of them lock eyes.

“No.” He murmurs. “He won’t.”

\------

The ride takes the rest of the day and most of the night, and they arrive in Westchester early in the morning well before the sun rises. Erik and Charles talked little, moved less, but for the most part it was...peaceful. Quiet.

Westchester is lit up as they roll in through the gates, anticipating their king’s return. The children are awestruck at the towering stone buildings and bright candle-lit streets that greet them. Westchester is sprawling, huge, rich, and old. It’s beautiful in a way so different from Genosha.

Erik turns his gaze up to look at the stars in the darkened sky, past the orange glow of lanterns. He has no words. It’s the end of an era.

Charles can’t know, because Erik still is a prideful man even after everything, but he is happy. He is so happy.

Shaw is dead and his children are happy and there is no collar around his neck. Metal is singing for Erik and he is far, far away from everything that has hurt him. He thinks his parents would be happy he did what he did, and that he got away because of it.

He regrets that he and Charles had to meet the way they did, but when he sneaks a glance over to the king and sees him watching his expression with fondness and yearning, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they will heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh lord this is the big honkin heehoo chapter. this is what we've all been waiting for! 
> 
> ALSO this is not the end of the story. i have some more stuff planned, but the big huge hurdle is finally crossed, and we can all finally relax a little bit. i am now going to take a break from writing this fic for a while because this chapter was a lot.
> 
> please tell me what you think as usual! i worked hard for three days straight on this chapter and i hope it's good :,]


	7. epilogue: caspian

ERIK

On Charles’ demands, Erik and his children are moved swiftly into his castle. After a life of living in canvas tents, in the vast rolling fields where wind blew and crickets chirped, hearing footsteps echoing on stone and the breeze from the nearby mountains howl was entirely unfamiliar to them.

Every time Erik shivered, it reminded him that he was no longer in Genosha, no longer under Shaw’s thumb. The discomfort grounded him and he was thankful for it.

He was thankful for many things; for Charles’ allowance that he and his children would share one large set of quarters, that none of them would be collared, and that they could all have free reign to explore the castle at their own whims as to not feel like prisoners in a foreign kingdom among these things. Erik also knows, however, that if they were not provided these privileges Charles knows that he would raise hell to get them. How much of the king’s charity was born out of true generosity and not fear he didn’t know yet.

Erik knows Charles cares for him a great deal. He’s kind, respectful, and charming. This does not make his memory of Nina’s death any less gruesome to remember.

During the first week or so the Lehnsherrs spend in Westchester, Erik is hostile - on purpose. The children are wary, but curious. Charles wants to spend time with them but Erik doesn’t allow it. They need that time for themselves, to heal, to recuperate, to move on from their past and into the future.

The shock he experienced after killing Shaw that lasted the rest of that day made Erik more liable to be civil and understanding with Charles; he wanted to leave, and Westchester was safe-er than Genosha. Now that he was in full control of his mind again, his memory cleared and not clouded by thoughts of murder, it was back to unforgiveness and irritation regarding the bleeding-heart king. Now that he was able to see Charles on a daily basis if he wanted to, he wanted to know what he was really like when he wasn’t being diplomatic or writing letters or exhausted from the thrill of battle.

Erik and the children stay in their quarters a good amount of the time. Even Pietro is hesitant about zipping around the castle, for he was scared of the helms the Westchesterian knights wore, and Lorna thought the castle was too cold. Wanda was fiercely protective of her dam and her siblings, and Erik was paranoid. They all slept in the same bed at night, which was more than big enough for the four of them but was too soft.

Charles, when he visits them and talks to Erik, attempts to reassure them that no one on the castle grounds will lay a finger on them. “You have complete freedom within these walls,” He insists. “I want to make it clear to you that none of you are prisoners.”

“If this is a way of disguising your desire to see me more often, it’s not working.” Erik says, and smirks humorlessly as he watches Charles’ face grow red.

“That’s not at all what it is -”

Erik waves him off, shoos him toward the door. “If you’ll forgive me, Your Majesty. When I stop having nightmares about being whipped and taking a tyrant alpha’s cock I will attend you.” He sneers, out of hearing range of the children. Charles looks ashamed, rightfully so, and with a quiet bidding of a good night he leaves them to their own devices again.

Erik doesn’t think he’ll ever stop having night terrors about Shaw, and he’s fairly sure Charles knows it as well. He doesn’t know how sarcastic he was being or not. All he knows for sure is that when he doesn’t feel like he’s a stranger in a strange land here, when he stops feeling out of place, then he will stop being a recluse and venture outside. 

Something that helps him rather than hinders him in that regard is the day when Charles introduces him and the children to his generals proper. If he was embarrassed that they all knew his name when he knew none of theirs, he didn’t show it, and humored Charles by being civil when he introduced the four of them to the four Genoshans.

Jean was the girl with the hair like fire who was gifted similarly to Charles. Scott was the general whose eyes harbored an endless beam of red light that had to be controlled with specially-made glasses. Hank, while he looked as mild-mannered as an advisor to royalty could be, was _apparently_ the beast Erik had seen ripping soldiers off their horses during the battle. “I take a concoction that suppresses my other form unless it’s needed.” He explains, but Erik still has a hard time believing it.

The man with the metal claws who dueled with Shaw alone is Logan. While Erik doesn’t especially care for the other three beyond deeming them adequate human beings, he feels differently about Logan. They meet eyes once and Erik sees something familiar in Logan’s, he sees age and suffering and survival. It quickly becomes clear to Erik that Logan is a man well-acquainted with death just like he is.

After meeting Charles’ confidants, the children are taken back to their rooms and Erik and Logan are left alone in the great war hall. Logan cocks his head in a request for Erik to follow him, and so he does, trailing along behind the older man through the twisting, winding halls of the castle.

They emerge on a balcony that overlooks the gardens and the stable behind the west wing. Logan produces a pipe from somewhere in his armor and, in a display that leaves Erik awe-stricken, strikes one of his claws against the stone wall and lights it on the sparks that are subsequently produced.

“You think the kids are afraid of me?” He asks Erik out of the blue. He blinks.

No point in lying. “Yes, they are. They’re brave, though -” He insists. “- with time, they’ll grow out of it.”

He looks Logan up and down, raising an eyebrow at the look he gets from him in return.

“You cut a terrifying figure, Sir Howlett. The children have not had good luck with armored warriors in the past.”

Out of respect or discomfort, Erik doesn’t know which, Logan doesn’t ask why, doesn’t comment. He just shrugs and takes another pull on his pipe. “I like kids.”

Now that’s surprising, Erik thinks. “Have you a mate?”

“No. Once, I did, but she died a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Logan shakes his head, and glares at Erik from the corner of his eye. “No point in saying sorry, she’s been avenged good and proper. Does McCoy really annoy you that much?”

Erik starts subtly, surprised at how quickly Logan dodged the subject. Fair enough; “Was it that obvious?” He mutters, a sharp smile quirking up one side of his mouth.

Logan huffs around his pipe. “More than obvious. He hightailed it out of the hall so quick you’d think he just got bit on the ass.”

They laugh, both of them. As far as conversations go, Erik thinks this is the best one he’s ever had. “Tell him I don’t mean to frighten him.” He tells Logan truthfully. “He’s just that - annoying. So is that Summers boy. They need to learn when to stop talking.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Logan chuckles. “Jeannie, though, she’s a sweet girl. Trustworthy. She’s the king’s ward.”

Erik gives him an incredulous look. He couldn’t have heard that right - “His ward? He can’t be that old.”

“She was ten when her parents abandoned her at the castle, and…” Logan trails off. “He was 23. He’s in his 30s now.”

Something about that makes Erik’s heart seize in his chest. That isn’t much older than he was when he had Anya. “So he raised her?”

“Yeah, alongside Raven. They’re around the same age.”

“Gods and goddesses…” Erik murmurs under his breath, drawing one hand thoughtfully over his mouth. Suddenly, Charles’ ease dealing with the children made a lot more sense.

Logan sniffs. “It’s good to find an alpha who knows how to wrangle kids. Scott n’ Jean are good at it too, but Hank...Hank’s just awkward around everybody.”

It explains further why the children were perfectly comfortable around the other generals and not Logan: they were more approachable than he was. “And you don’t?”

He shakes his head. “No. Never had any - or at least I hope I don’t have any. Don’t want to bring anything from my life into theirs, if you know what I mean.”

Erik does. He nods slowly, bracing his hands on the balustrade. The wind blows across the gardens and he watches it rustle an orange tree, sending a few overripe fruits tumbling into the grass.

“They’re... kind.”

“The generals?”

“Yes. Charles, as well.”

Logan thoughtfully takes another drag. “I take it you’re not used to kindness, huh.”

It’s pathetic to think about for too long, but he’s right. “You could say that.”

Logan pats him on the shoulder, gentler than Erik would have expected him to. “You’ll be safe here, Lehnsherr, both you and your brood. You don’t have to worry about them shouldering your pain anymore, that’s what Charles wants to be there for.”

He turns and shoots Logan a disappointed look. “My children are already poisoned from what Shaw did to them, to _me._ Charles can’t do anything, and I wish he’d stop trying to.”

Logan shrugs. “He wants your kids to be happy. See, this is what I’m talking about -” He shifts his position and leans his elbows against the balcony, rolling his head on his neck to meet Erik’s eyes. “- you don’t want them to share your trauma. Nobody wants that for their family. Charles gets that, and he and his bleeding heart want to take that burden. You should’ve heard him talking about you before we went out for battle.”

Erik scoffs. “I need to see it to believe it.”

“He’s been nothing but nice to you, bub, what do you not believe?”

“That he actually cares about me and not just pities me. He’s only seen me oppressed and in pain, and that’s all he has to base his judgement of me off of. He must think I’m some winsome stray dog that just happened to wander into his care.” Erik mutters, laughing humorlessly.

“Guess you’ll just need to stick around to find out about that.” Logan says quietly, turning his eyes away from Erik and toward the stables in the distance. “At least believe that he cares about the kids. They need to be taken care of, and he knows you can do that, but he wants to help.”

Erik huffs a sardonic laugh. “Don’t I know that.”

_“And,_ he wants to make up for what he did.” Logan adds, and Erik can already feel himself tensing up. “He wants to make reparations. Give it all time.”

The last thing Erik wants to do is give it time, but seeing as he’d loathe to return to Genosha for at least a year, he’s stuck with Charles and his damning miserable guilt and big watery blue eyes. He’s got no other choice than to watch him and see what he does. 

Erik closes his eyes. Sighs out. “I’ll grant you this - the one thing I do believe is that the castle is safe.”

He can practically hear the smile in Logan’s voice when he says “That’s a good start. No one here is in the business of hurting you or your family, you can take my word for it. Have a good day, Lehnsherr.”

And then Erik hears his heavy footsteps retreat from the balcony and echo against stone as they leave him alone once again. 

Westchester was strange, and he felt like a stranger in it. The mundane structure of Erik’s life now was nothing like it was in Genosha. Give it time, though, Logan had said. Give it time.

Erik departs from the balcony and heads back toward his family’s quarters. If there was one thing that he knew to be true, it was that time did have a peculiar way of revealing things about people that you wouldn’t notice at first meeting. He’d just have to wait and see what the king was really like.

\-------------

After his chat with Logan, Erik makes an active effort to pay more attention to how Charles behaves around him and his children. Before, he was just grinning and bearing with it (minus the grinning), but once his attention was sparked toward how Charles treated him he found himself noticing every tiny little detail that spoke of just how intensely the king was committing to this reparations shtick.

He wore boots with metal caps on the toes on purpose. He remembered Lorna’s and the twins’ favorite foods. Erik never felt him in his mind, not even barely. It was the tiny things like that that he was surprised to notice after a few days, added on to the grand sweeping gestures of letting the four of them stay as honored guests in his castle and giving them everything they could have possibly wanted for.

It irks him, for some reason. A little voice in the back of his head (that was his own, not anybody else’s) insisted to Erik that Charles didn’t deserve to be scrutinized like this, but Erik insisted right back that the king deserved to have a bit of a hard time from him.

It was almost tiring to watch Charles be _that_ kind, _that_ generous toward him and his family, anyway. He had to be trying to suck up to Erik somehow.

Logan had been right; Erik had not experienced much kindness in his life, and as such it was hard for him to tell what generosity was real and what was not.

The other Genoshans who had laughed with him and drank with him, during that one night when Shaw was gone from camp, that was real. He felt it.

...He wanted to feel that Charles was real, too. He wanted it so much. Erik wouldn’t be able to take his betrayal, not after everything the man had already put him through.

All he had to do to prove that Charles was being genuine was to put some pressure on him. Just a bit.

He confronts Charles out of the blue one day while wandering around the castle, keeping track of Lorna, Wanda and Pietro as they zip around and explore. They come upon the throne room, where Erik sees Charles speaking to Hank just to the left of his throne in the back of the room, and Charles seems to notice him before he even takes a breath.

Telepaths, he swears. They don’t know how annoying they can be.

“Erik.” Charles greets him, lips quickly blooming in a smile. “Lovely of you to join us.”

“Can I borrow you for a moment, Your Majesty?” Erik asks, eyeing Hank closely enough to see him whither under his gaze. “I won’t be but a minute.”

“Of course-” Charles starts, turning to Hank, but the man is already gone, scurrying off down the halls from the force of Erik’s glare. He turns back to the omega with an exasperated huff.  
“You know, you could have just asked him nicely.”

Erik shrugs. “It’s easier to intimidate someone than entertain them with niceties.”

A sigh. “What did you want me for?”

Erik looks back to see where the children were, and is satisfied to find that Lorna was practicing her gift on the candlesticks on the wall while Pietro and Wanda watched, rapt with attention. She was already so talented, and he couldn’t be prouder.

Then he shakes his head briefly, blinks, and comes back to Charles. “You don’t have to fight for my forgiveness.”

Charles seems confused. He tilts his head to the side in a question - “Your forgiveness? What, what’s this about?”

Erik thinks he knows perfectly well what he’s talking about, but nonetheless he narrows his eyes and tries again. “It’ll come on my own terms no matter what you do, Charles. You can’t manipulate me into forgetting everything so quickly.”

“Erik, I don’t understand…”

“You’re - you’re so... _kind_ to me.” Erik maintains, “You’re a king, you shouldn’t be waiting on me like a common servant. And you’re acting as the children’s alpha sire to an alarming degree. I’ve seen them scenting you.”

The look he gets from Charles implies that he didn’t expect for Erik to notice, but he really should’ve known better: when it came to his children, Erik noticed everything. He continues - “Whatever it is you’re trying to do, whether you’re trying to domesticate me or placate me or bribe me, or _whatever it is,_ stop now while you’re behind. It doesn’t change anything.”

Charles seems incredulous. Erik crosses his arms and waits for him to speak, for he always had _something_ to say.

It takes a second of Charles opening and closing his mouth for him to come up with an answer. “Erik, I’m not doing any of that to do...whatever it is you think I’m doing.” He says slowly, and Erik scoffs at him.

“I’m being completely serious, don’t you make that face at me!” Charles protests. “Really, Erik, not everyone is out to get you. I know you think that, but you should remember that Westchester is a _very_ different kingdom from Genosha, and you shouldn’t expect my people or I to act like Shaw and his...associates did.”

“Your good will does not have a good history with me.” Erik states plainly, and Charles wilts, just slightly.

“I...I know. I know. But there is no risk to my kindness this time, is there? No, there isn’t, because no one in this castle, nay, the entire _kingdom_ is thinking about hurting you or your children.” He taps his temple with a slender finger. “And I would know if they were.”

Erik’s eyes flutter closed for a moment as he looks off to the side, away from Charles and his painfully earnest expression. “So why _are_ you being so considerate towards me.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Charles shift his cane in his hand, a motion that carries a similar impression to wringing one’s hands. “Erik, I - I will always feel guilty for what happened to your daughter.” He starts.

Erik can already feel himself tensing up, but Charles continues. “You know that, or at least I sincerely hope you do. I will feel guilt for her death for the rest of my life, and I deserve to, for what I did. It was…” He shakes his head, blue eyes troubled under a furrowed brow. “...It was ignorant of me, and stupid, and went directly against what you told me that morning after the banquet. I got ahead of myself, I let my heart get in the way of my head, which is the last thing a telepath should ever do.”

When Erik manages to pull his eyes back over to Charles’ face he is stunned by how sincere he looks. “Your daughter’s death weighs heavily in my heart, and I am very, very sorry for what I did to cause it.” But then he takes a deep breath in, and out. “But, my shame does not have anything to do with my generosity towards you. Erik, I…”

Charles’ eyes flick down to the stone floor and then back up again. When he speaks, he sounds uncharacteristically sheepish. “I like you very much, Erik. You are a wonderful man and I am in awe of how strong-willed you are. I enjoy your presence in my castle and I adore your children. Is it a crime to show care towards those whom you are fond of?”

Of all the things Erik thought of that Charles could have possibly said, that was not any of them. He stands there silently, lost for words, unable to comprehend how... _simple_ Charles’ motives were. Nothing had ever been so simple, so unexpectedly, _serendipitously_ simple. 

There was no ulterior motive to Charles’ actions, and to Erik that was a relief.

Erik shakes his head minutely as he stares the king down, searching for something, _anything_ that could tell him why Charles Xavier is the way he is. He gets nothing, disappointingly enough, and in the end he just fixes Charles with a tired glare.

“I don’t understand.” He whispers. Charles moves closer to him, a silent prompt for him to explain.

Erik’s eyes are troubled when he focuses them on the alpha - “You don’t even know my last name,” He murmurs, with a bitter laugh. “You don’t know anything about me. Why do you care for me the way you do?”

“Oh, Erik, I know so very much about you.” Charles says gently. “How could I not care?”

For that, Erik has no answer. His expression must say as much, because Charles reaches up and softly but firmly pats him on the arm. “And if you think I should know more about you, telling me your last name would be a good place to start.” He adds, grin cheeky when it curls his lips up.

Erik gestures vaguely to his head. “Couldn’t you just find it yourself?”

“Not when you have shields up - and it’s not polite, anyhow. I much prefer to get to know people the traditional way.”

Something about that is strangely charming, Erik thinks. These days he’s finding that a lot more of Charles is bearable to be around than he thought would be. 

“It’s Lehnsherr.” He answers him, turning his mind away from Charles and his curiously infuriating charm. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

“Son of the late Edie and Jakob Lehnsherr, rulers of the mighty kingdom of Genosha…” Charles murmurs, reverently. Erik despises the heat he suddenly feels growing in his chest from Charles’ hushed tone, his sapphire eyes gazing fervently up at him. “Heir to its eternal throne.”

“Maybe.” Erik replies, half-hearted. “I’m not sure if or when I’ll return to my homeland.”

Charles nods thoughtfully. “I think you should. You’d make a wonderful leader, I’m sure of it. Kind, gracious, and yet firm, and unyielding. You _deserve_ your birthright, Erik.” His voice is painfully genuine yet again. Charles is almost hypnotizing to talk to, and Erik doesn’t know how he feels about it.

“Maybe someday.” He relents. “When I’m ready.”

“When you’re ready.” Charles agrees. “But until then, you and yours may stay in my castle for as long as you would like.”

There’s no trace of dishonesty or trickery that Erik can deduce from Charles’ tone, and his expression is so warm and open that he feels no need to challenge him on the matter. Charles wasn’t perfect, but he was good, and always working to be better, which was a quality hard to find in a man. Erik could trust in that quality if not anything else.

He nods. “We thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesty.” He tells Charles, tone considerably lighter and joking than it had been.

Charles nods at him, with that still-blooming smile set upon his lips. Suddenly, Erik’s future in Westchester with his family didn’t seem as bad as he previously imagined.

He allows himself to smile back.

\--------------

Time passes leisurely for the residents of Westchester.

The skirmish in the north has now been dubbed the Battle For Genosha by the public, and it is common knowledge that the good king Xavier is housing the Genoshan royal family in his castle while their empire is being rebuilt.

Erik never cared much for politics, at least not when Shaw was in charge of them. He accepts what messengers tell him about what’s going on in Genosha and remembers it all, but is thankful that he is not the one burying corpses from the battlefield and redistributing Shaw’s assets amongst the people. If he was a different man, maybe he would be at the forefront of the reconstruction effort, but right now the thought of setting foot in his place of birth leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

A lot of things leave a bad taste in his mouth, actually. His appetite has lessened over the weeks and he gets sick easily.

The children are settling in nicely to their new home, however temporary it may be, but Erik not so much. Charles and his generals believe for the most part that Erik is just cagey from the aftermath of the battle, from the unfamiliarity of Westchester and the shock of having his life change so dramatically so quickly. They’re right, but only partly.

On the inside of Erik’s right index finger, there’s a couple of little scars. The day before the battle, when Shaw fucked him, he bit down so hard on his hand that his teeth dug into his skin and left those marks.  
When he realizes that that fateful encounter with Shaw left him pregnant, he’s looking at those scars.

He’s in his quarters with the children. They’re preoccupied with something or other, and they don’t notice their father heave a breath in and rub a shaking hand down over his chin, tugging at his beard. They don’t notice him drop his head into his hands. They don’t notice him squeeze his eyes shut.

Erik’s an old enough and experienced enough omega to know he’s pregnant within a few months of showing symptoms. He’s had five children, buried two, given birth four times. His recurring nausea and lack of hunger is enough to let him know that Shaw had left him one last reminder of his abuse, growing in his womb. Shaw’s blood is in this baby’s veins, just like it is in all the others Erik had borne for him, and his bloodline will continue through them.

He’s come to haunt Erik one last time, just when he was beginning to think his past was finally past. Maybe those old wives’ tales about the ghosts of those whom you’ve killed following you around were true after all.

Erik curses Shaw’s name but makes sure the children can’t hear him do it. He curses the fact that the man who killed his parents and children and ruined his life seemed to never leave him alone, even when he was dead. He curses the fact that Nina died less than half a year ago and that he’s not ready for another child.

He prays to the gods that the baby is not a girl.

Wanda yells “Papaaaaa!” from another room, and Erik takes his face out of his hands with a long breath in. As he rises from where he was sitting he decides not to tell the children about the baby just yet, and not to tell Charles either. Charles’ pity will no doubt be maddening and he has no idea what the Lorna and the twins will make of it, since their last sibling was killed and they were forced to watch this one being conceived. He’ll tell them eventually, but not now. Not for a while.

A bird had flown in through a window of the Lehnsherrs’ quarters, and the kids wanted Erik to help set it free. He forces a tired smile onto his face and humors them while trying not to think about the future.

\--------------

Erik goes on with his life as it has been, hiding his knowledge of the baby from everyone, until he’s thwarted by Wanda of all people.

He’s reading she and her siblings a story from one of the large books that had been brought to their quarters one night, Lorna fast asleep with her head tucked against his breastbone and Pietro sprawled out on the mattress. Wanda is bundled up in blankets within the protective circle of her father’s arm, still awake. When he finishes their story and closes the book, using its metal-capped corners to gently float it onto the floor, he turns back to see wide brown eyes staring up at him.

He gives her a questioning look, and she shuffles impossibly closer to him while managing to not disturb Lorna. “There’s something inside you.” She whispers, conspiratorially.

Her wording is strange, to say the least. “What do you mean by that?” Erik asks her, with a sinking feeling that he already knows the answer.

Her small hand emerges from her pile of blankets and she brushes her fingertips over his stomach. “In here. Like...feels like Nina.” Her eyes turn up to him with impossible hope. “Are you having a baby?”

Erik sighs. There was never any point in lying to Wanda when she seemed to know everything anyway. He holds her hand in his own over his midsection and squeezes. “Yes.” The way her eyebrows knit together in obvious worry is painfully mature of her. Erik kisses her forehead. “Don’t worry.”

“Does King Charles know?”

“No. You’re not allowed to tell him, either.”

“Why not?”

How does he explain this to an eleven-year-old? Erik isn’t sure, but he tries anyway; “Because it doesn’t pertain to him.”

Wanda seems to consider this. “Can I tell Pietro and Lorna?”

Erik opens his mouth to reply but then senses another gaze on him. He looks down, and sure enough, Lorna’s got one green eye open and staring at him and her sister. Pietro is still asleep like a log.

“I think someone already knows.” Erik murmurs, looking down at his youngest. Lorna’s expression turns troubled, and she uncurls slightly from her spot against him.

“Is it going to die?” Lorna whispers, with such trepidation in her tone that it threatens to bring tears to Erik’s eyes just as they are gathering in hers. 

Erik strokes her hair, cards his fingers through the unruly emerald strands, and shakes his head. “No. The baby will live. This time I can promise you that.”

This time, Shaw was dead. This time Erik was not in Genosha. This time he had his metal-sense back instead of a collar around his neck. Even if he thought the baby was truly in danger he would have the strength to fend off any threat to them. He had one thing to hold onto through all this, which was that this child would not die.

His words seem to comfort Lorna somewhat, and she relaxes visibly. Her head tilts down to look at his stomach. “When are they going to come?”

Wanda makes an agreeing sound, and Erik thinks back to how much time had passed since the battle. “I think...in winter. After your birthday again, Lorna.”

She groans quietly in her throat and Erik’s lips threaten to twitch into a smile. “Surely you won’t be unkind to your little sibling.” He prompts her, and watches as Lorna rolls her eyes.

“No I won’t. I want them to be born on my birthday!”

“They very well might be. Sometimes babes come early.” Erik admits.

“Really?” Lorna pipes up, mood clearly improved, and Erik chuckles under his breath. The children had an almost uncanny skill of making him feel better when he felt under duress, and he was eternally thankful to them for that.

“Really.” He says, and looks between his daughters as he adds “Go back to sleep, you and your sister both. You can tell Pietro in the morning.”

His pointed look at the two of them makes them relent, and Lorna resumes her position pressed up against him while Wanda sinks further under the covers. Erik turns to the right to ease the ache he’s already starting to feel in his lower back and looks out the window at the starry sky until he falls asleep.

In the morning, Pietro is woken up to the enthusiastically-told news of a little sibling-to-be, and throws himself over Erik while he’s still trying to wake up. The breath is swiftly knocked out of his lungs by the weight of his son and Erik gently nudges him off onto the mattress. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he clumsily pats the boy on the head and smooths down his silver hair. “Thank you very much for your congratulations, my love. Please let me sleep.”

Evidently, he cannot, because the girls had already started up a game of make-believe and they needed a tyrant for a brave knight to defeat. Erik begrudgingly lets Pietro drag him out of bed and into their imaginary story, and he wakes up quickly after that.

The children keep to their word and do not tell anyone about Erik’s pregnancy. Life carries on, now with the four of them all in the know, and Erik keeps a close eye on Charles and his generals to see if any of them seemed to be catching on. 

He wanted to prolong that as long as he could, but he knew the news would come out eventually. He starts showing as the leaves in the castle gardens turn golden red and when he notices his clothes getting tighter around his middle knows that he’d have to face Charles about the baby sooner or later.

Erik doesn’t expect Charles to be the one who confronts him about it, especially seeing as he’d been avoiding the king like the plague for most of the time he had spent in the castle thus far, but somehow Charles finds him after dark one evening and gently but forcefully tugs him into his study.

Erik stands in front of the closed door and crosses his arms over his chest, cautious, and Charles paces the room. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me that you were with child?” Is the first thing he says, and Erik quickly schools his expression back into stoicism after his jaw drops in surprise.

He doesn’t bother arguing that Charles is incorrect. “It’s not something _for_ you to know.”

Charles reels back like he had said something damning about his mother, and Erik rolls his eyes.

“Wh - I think it is!”

“Why?” Erik asks him, and then waits for his answer.

It takes Charles a second. “You’re a guest in my home! How am I supposed to provide you with adequate care if you don’t tell me?”

Erik scoffs. “I don’t need to be looked after. I’ve delivered many a healthy babe with minimal help.”

“Still,” Charles insists. “Something could happen to you or the child and I can’t allow either of you to get hurt, I thought you _knew_ that.” He presses his hand to his forehead, exhaling a forceful breath out. “Honestly, Erik, you are going to give me a heart attack someday.”

Something about that rubs Erik the wrong way. Perhaps his moods are more volatile at the moment, but Charles doesn’t understand his mindset and Erik needs him to. He uncrosses his arms and advances toward him with his hands in fists at his sides.

“I don’t think it’s your place to _allow_ me to do anything or not.” He says darkly, and fortunately from his tone Charles seems to get the message.

“You know that’s not what I mean, Erik, I -”

“No, let me finish. You don’t deserve to know every inside detail of my life just because I am a resident of your home. I am grateful to you for your hospitality, yes, but I am not your pity project nor your mate. You don’t get me just because you saved me. You _earn_ me and my trust.”

Charles sputters, seemingly lost for words. “I don’t…” He furrows his brow. “Erik, I’m not - why do you think me so cruel? Why do you think I have so little respect for you?”

To Erik, the answer is simple. “Because I’m a conquest of war.”

The king sinks down into a chair in front of his desk and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You are _not_ a conquest, Erik. You are anything but. Does everything we talked about a few months ago suddenly mean nothing to you? I wasn’t _asking_ for every detail of your life.”

“But you knew I was pregnant when I have told no one.” Erik argues, fixing Charles with a scrutinizing eye.

“Erik, has it occured to you that because you avoid me so much I actually pay more attention to you when I _do_ see you?”

Erik falls silent for a moment. God damn it, the king was right. Whenever he had caught sight of Charles around the castle as of late, his blue eyes seemed to be magnetically drawn to him as soon as he sensed his mind was in the vicinity. His shields protected his mind but Charles was also very visually attentive.

“And besides -” Charles continues, leaning his cane against his desk. “The servants have just been bringing the strangest food combinations up to your quarters. I thought it was your childrens’ doing, but I doubt any of them have tasted raw elk heart with gooseberry liquor before. Hell, _I_ haven’t.”

“It’s Genoshan.” Erik grumbles, despising the heat he is starting to feel creep up his cheeks. “Why do you care so much to pay attention to my behavior like that, anyway.”

Charles sighs. “I told you before, and my mind has not changed. I care about you and your family. Would you have notified me if one of your children fell sick?”

A pause. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

Charles gestures to him tiredly with his hand. “There, see? I wouldn’t be as worried about you if you weren’t so closed off. If you or one of the kids was sick, or if you were in pain from the baby, I would want to know so I could be there for you. Trust me, Erik, please. I want the best for you all.”

Erik wants to bite back at him with more venom and vitriol than Charles deserved, but he reigns himself in and runs a hand through his hair. It’s suddenly hard to meet Charles’ eyes.

“I’ve always been in pain, Charles.” He murmurs, far away. “Ever since I myself was a child. I only know how to handle it on my own. How am I supposed to trust a stranger?”

The alpha wilts in his chair. “Am I still a stranger to you?”

It’s hard to decide whether he is or not. “No, but I don’t...I don’t know you. I only know of your reputation.”

“If we talked more you could get to know me better. I’d like that very much.” Charles’ voice is so honest and hopeful when he says this it almost makes Erik feel guilty. He really hadn’t spoken at length with anyone in the castle besides his children, and that one conversation with Logan didn’t really count, so…

He thinks about how happy the children were when they played and laughed with each other, and came to the unfortunate conclusion that he probably needed some company. Out of everyone he could choose from, Charles was probably his best bet.

Erik’s still cynical, though. “Talk about what? We have nothing in common.”

That manages to bring a ghost of a smirk back to Charles’ face. “I don’t think that’s very true. I’ve actually been meaning to ask you about the baby ever since I found out you were carrying.”

“What about them?”

Charles’ smirk turns wry, self-deprecating. Anxious. “Are you keeping it?”

Erik is, simply, appalled.

He fixes Charles with a disgusted, incredulous glare - “Are you that thickheaded? Of course I am.”

Charles, taken very off-guard by his reaction, raises his hands in surrender. “It’s a reasonable question to ask! Now that Shaw is dead, you don’t have to bear his young or raise them anymore. I thought you’d...want that.”

“Have I given you any sort of inclination that I am unhappy with the children I have now?” Erik asks him, disbelief coloring his features.

“No!” Charles says quickly. “No, they’re wonderful children, I just thought...well, the baby and they were all conceived without your consent. Because of this, you don’t have to claim the one you carry as your own once it is born. It’s common here in cases of rape for the omega to give up the child borne from it.”

“That may be how it is here in Westchester, but all omegas traditionally claim the children they birth as their own in Genosha, no matter the circumstances.” It was startling to Erik how little Charles knew about Genoshan customs, and it irritated him even though the rational part of his mind was well aware that he had been raised in entirely different circumstances. “I have claimed all of mine as my own since my first pregnancy - why should I cease now?”

“Because now you have the choice to.” The king’s voice is soft when he speaks, in that infuriating way it gets when he’s trying to reassure Erik that he’s safe in the castle like he was a lost puppy. He feels deeply and strongly, that much was true, but Erik hated being pitied.

He takes a long breath in through his nose and lets the rest of his irritation fizzle out. “Even when I didn’t have the choice, Charles, I wanted them all. They were all I had to hold onto.” He presses his hand to his belly in an effort to make his point that much clearer. “I want this one too.”

The act seems to wear something down in Charles, and Erik watches his eyes travel down to his middle and stay there, with a worried knot in his brow. For some reason Erik has the urge to press his thumb there and smooth it out.

“It’s your choice.” Charles murmurs, and meets Erik’s eyes again. “Would you, however, assent to having a healer check you over every few weeks or so? Just to make sure you two are healthy.”

Erik sighs, rolling his gaze off to the side. “Please?” Charles begs him.

A beat, and Erik decides that he can allow the king that much. He was never tended to by a healer in Genosha save for when he was in labor, so it would be strange, but...after the battle, he worried about the baby’s health. “Fine.” He relents. Charles perks up almost immediately.

“Wonderful.” He seems much more satisfied than he should be with Erik’s answer, but at this point he doesn’t want to contest Charles about it. “I’ll have Hank do it all, you met him, he’s just about the least threatening an alpha can get despite his looks. Try not to scare him too much.”

Erik holds back a derisive snort. He remembers Hank. “I’ll try my damndest.”

Charles looks downright victorious that he got Erik to emit just the ghost of a laugh, and stands from his chair with a steady grip on his cane, back in a good mood. “I’ll send him up to you so you can work out when to meet, my friend. Perhaps he’ll inspire you to venture around the castle more often!”

Erik doubts it, but he doesn’t say that. He _does,_ however, appreciate the confidentiality between him and Hank that Charles is allowing, and he _does_ notice that Charles called him his friend. He doesn’t think himself a very friendly person, especially taking into account how he had acted since he had come to Westchester, but Charles as a person was very forgiving - a most endearing flaw.

He moves to the side as Charles pushes open the door to his quarters for him - charming, considering that Erik could do it himself with nary a movement. “Sorry to take you away from whatever your plans were for the day.” Charles apologizes. “I’m sure the children are around here somewhere.”

Erik glances up and down the hall and spreads out his metal-sense to look for Wanda’s earrings. “I’m sure.”

And just as an afterthought, he adds: “And...thank you. For trying, at the very least. You’re - absolutely _maddening,_ but I know I’m giving you a hard time.”

Charles shoots him a radiant smile despite the barb and lightly pats him on the arm. “You are entirely welcome, Erik. I’m glad we had this talk.”

When he leaves the king’s quarters in search of his offspring, Erik definitely feels like some of the tension between he and Charles had gone. Not all of it, but enough that it was definitely noticeable. He reminds himself that Charles means well and that he had always meant well, ever since they first met at the fall banquet. Erik wasn’t sure if he even had the propensity within himself to be as evil as Shaw, or as manipulative and deceptive as Emma. Telepaths were tricky, but Charles was leagues away from her. He wasn’t a danger.

And if he wasn’t a danger, then the castle wasn’t a danger. Westchester wasn’t a danger. The thought brings Erik serenity.

\--------------

Erik was right - after their conversation, he finds that being in Charles’ general vicinity isn’t quite as agonizing as he assumed it to be. In the weeks and months that follow their talk, Westchester prepares for winter, and Erik settles in.

He often sees Charles around the castle, and the king makes a point to stop whatever he’s doing and say hello whenever he sees him, with or without any of the children. Caught off-guard, Erik starts off saying hello back because it’d be rude of him not to, but before long he almost looks forward to seeing Charles’ bright-eyed smile.

Once or twice, Charles approaches Erik with questions about Genosha, about what to do with the kingdom politically and how its people felt about certain issues. He answers them to the best of his ability, and Charles doesn’t mind that his opinions were just slightly misinformed due to how he had been controlled by Shaw.

They’re civil with each other. Charles gives Erik his space, and Erik doesn’t stay in his quarters for multiple days at a time. He needs the exercise, anyway, and he wants to memorize the layout of the castle and its grounds eventually.

On the occasion that Hank visits and checks on Erik and the baby’s health, Charles is all too happy to entertain the children in lieu of a proper caretaker. Pietro yanks him down the hall by his robes and Charles only laughs when Erik calls for him to be gentle with the king, he’s got a bad leg. Charles is very good at storytelling and is more actively involved in the childrens’ make-believe plays than Erik had ever managed to be.

Hank is always very pleased to see that the baby is healthy, especially considering he feared Erik’s wrath if anything turned out to be wrong. Westchester does no divinations or rituals to attempt to parse how many children grew in an omega’s womb, like Genosha did, but Erik had never much cared about them anyway. He was satisfied enough to know that he wouldn’t birth a stillborn.

When the baby is beginning to move inside him and he can feel it flutter against his hand, Erik is asked by Hank about his other children, and the alpha is shocked to know that two of them had been killed. Apparently infanticide is punishable by death in Westchester, he says with just a hint of disgust in his voice, and Erik laughs bitterly.

“It was prohibited in Genosha as well.”

The good doctor’s expression quickly turns anguished. Erik had a feeling he didn’t truly know the extent of Shaw’s cruelty - it was likely no one did. Charles was the only one who had come close to it by looking in Erik’s mind.

This is how he gets a rather heartfelt confession from Hank about how he swears on his honor that the baby will not be in danger for as long as they reside in Westchester. At this point, it’s getting easier for Erik to believe that, but it’s nice to hear it again.

A couple developments in the Lehnsherrs’ lives do wonders for Erik’s wellbeing after the children whine a little too much about being bored (Erik has no idea how they could be, the castle was an endless labyrinth to him); first, Charles leads he and Lorna down to the castle forge where knights’ armor and the necessary accoutrements for horseback riding are made, and lets them take over a good corner of it so they can practice the use of their gifts.

The thrumming of liquid-hot metal echoes in Erik’s veins, the hum of the earth welcoming him back, and the moment he steps into the foundry he’s already itching to get his hands on steel, iron, anything that was available to him. Those dreams he had back in Genosha about making things for Charles pop up in his head again, and he quickly shakes them away but they persist, always in the back of his mind. It is, however, very easy to distract himself by teaching Lorna.

They both have to wear tunics with long sleeves and hold thick fabric to their mouths when they get close to the furnaces to retrieve their metal (Charles urges Erik to conform to that above all else lest he inhale any noxious fumes that could harm the baby), but other than that Erik finds himself having the best time he’s had in the castle thus far. He’s in his element, _literally,_ and he’s watching his daughter form little shapes and tiny animals from metal she has floating in midair, and he’s immensely proud of her.

He finds he enjoys making weapons - Westchesterian swords were far too flimsy, in his opinion, nothing like the broadswords Genoshan warriors favored, so he makes multiple of them. He makes metal arrowheads too, a more delicate art, and etches intricate designs into the hilts of daggers he wants to give to each of his children to defend themselves from threats when they’re older. Logan and Raven are very interested in his blacksmithing, as it were, and take some of the arsenal he’s created to introduce to the royal guard. Lorna seems to be most skilled in making jewelry and other pretty little things that lords and ladies would wear in polite company; Charles just adores the signet ring she creates for him, a childlike image of the Xavier lion from his family crest imprinted upon it.

Lorna excels at her ability to control metal, despite the years she had gone with her power stifled. The only problem with her newfound talent was that she couldn’t stop melting and reforming the metal furnishings on all their furniture. More than once, Erik had to gently scold her into fixing them, to which she grumpily obeyed.

The second development, this time inclusive of Wanda and Pietro, are the horses.

Charles takes them down to the stables and tells the kids to pick a horse without a name to take as their own. Erik stays standing still, shocked, as Lorna and the twins run down the rows of stables to find their steeds, until Charles gently nudges his hip. 

“My offer includes you, you know.”

For a Genoshan, giving someone the pick of the lot when it came to a horse was an insurmountably high honor. Erik meets Charles’ eyes, unbelieving. “You’re _giving_ us horses?”

To Charles, it’s apparently not such an uncommon gift. “Of course. We have more than we have jobs for them all to do, and they need to stretch their legs.”

Erik huffs a laugh, incredulous, and slowly enters the stable to look at the horses. Charles follows him while keeping an eye on the children.

When they all exit the stables, Erik is on a dappled grey thoroughbred, huge but gentle. The stallion is a warhorse, truly, but Erik loves him. Charles emerges alongside him on his white steed, the same one Erik had seen in battle, looking concerned.

“What?”

Charles _hms_ uneasily. “He’s a powerful steed. Are you... sure, you’ll be alright on him?”

“Of course.” Erik says in just short of a scoff. “Genoshan horses are bred to be hotblooded, I’m no stranger to them.”

It doesn’t seem to lessen Charles’ anxiety any one bit. “But you - I’m sure you’re a fine rider, but…” His gaze flicks downward for a moment, and Erik knows what he means.

“Charles, my people spend their entire lives on horses. I’ve seen omegas more than once get off their horses to give birth and then get right back on. We’ll be fine.” He says, giving Charles a pointed look. He has one hand on the reins and one on his lower belly, sitting as comfortably in his saddle as any pregnant omega could. When Charles sees him ride, he isn’t sure whether it’ll convince him of his and the baby’s safety or give him a heart attack.

There’s only one way to find out, of course. Erik and Charles wait for the children to join them, and before long they trot outside into the frostbitten ground. Wanda has named her fiery mare Scarlet and Pietro has named his grey stallion Quicksilver - Lorna hasn’t come up with a name for her horse yet, which is a beautiful tawny yellow mustang, but she’s mumbling ideas to herself under her breath.

Charles leads them up into the catskills surrounding the back of the kingdom. Erik and the children often speed ahead of him, and he panics to catch up every time. Citizens of Westchester are not accustomed to riding unless it is for war, Erik concludes. It sounds dreadfully boring.

“You worry too much, Your Majesty.” Erik teases him (teases him!), just before urging his stallion down a fairly steep hill. Charles’ undignified squawk makes him laugh all the way down.

Lorna is ecstatic to be riding on her own, and excitedly chatters with her siblings the entire time they’re outside and even when they’re back inside the kingdom. She still hasn’t decided on a name for her horse, but Pietro and Wanda are helping as best as they can. The best Erik could come up with when she asked him was Magneto, but that was quickly vetoed. Charles’ amused snicker quickly dies when Erik shoots him a glare.

In the end, Lorna hops off her horse once they’re back in the stables, and the moment her feet hit the ground she gasps. Erik’s already worried that she got hurt from dismounting incorrectly or something similar, but no, the girl’s got a grin from ear to ear.

“Polaris! I’m naming her Polaris!” She happily cries, and all of Erik’s worry evaporates in an instant.

“A good name.” He tells her, ruffling her hair, and the five of them reenter the castle in much higher spirits than anybody had been in for months.

(The next week after their outing, Charles gets to see Erik practice his archery from horseback and almost drops dead from fear. Erik sinks an arrow into the center of a target and grins toothily.)

Through all of this, through their long stay in the castle to Erik teaching Lorna in the foundry to all of them going out to ride, Erik and Charles grow closer. Erik’s tempted to call their relationship an acquaintanceship, or perhaps even a friendship, but every time he and Charles lock eyes there’s something much deeper and emotional Erik can see in him. It’s the same kind of gaze he saw in the carriage into Westchester from Genosha, tender and soft and open. The only difference now, though, is that Erik finds it easier to stare back.

Sometimes the two of them meet without the children in tow to talk and get to know each other. Charles teaches Erik how to play chess and he takes to the game easily, racking up a few wins against the befuddled alpha within days of their first matches together. They talk about court business Charles has had, goings on in the kingdom at large, the status of Genosha under the temporary Westchesterian ruler, and customs from both of their cultures that neither had known prior. 

There are some things Erik finds very interesting; Westchesterian girls are named after their alpha parent’s family, and Genoshan girls are always named with names ending in ‘a’. They laugh over the ratio of boys to girls that Erik has had, and he says nothing about his hope for this next one to be a boy.

Charles gets very attached to the yet-unborn child, even though it is not his. There haven’t been any births within the castle for years, he tells Erik, and he loves children but rarely saw any before the Lehnsherrs moved in. “You raised Lady Jean and General Darkholme.” Erik points out, and Charles sighs wistfully.

“I did. I did, and I loved it. Spending time with Lorna and the twins makes me just as happy.”

Warmth blooms in Erik’s chest at that - the look in Charles’ eyes is so longing when he speaks, so true, that for a moment he wonders what the alpha would be like as a proper father. For a king, he’d be a good one, for sure. He was the most empathetic king Erik had ever heard of, and he had certainly never seen Shaw spend any time with his offspring. It took a lot to be so charming with both adults and children like Charles was, and Erik was confident it wasn’t entirely attributed to his telepathy.

Charles is a good man - this, he knows. He still cares about Erik despite everything that’s happened, and to him that’s worth something priceless. To have someone so loyal was a blessing.

Perhaps they are something like acquaintances after all, Erik thinks, looking down at the chessboard between them. He has stopped seeing Charles’ penmanship held in Shaw’s hand every time he saw his face or heard his voice, and he no longer questioned his motives whenever he said something or did something kind. He willingly spent time with Charles when there was no reason for him to, was grateful for his gifts, made jokes at his expense. Erik had to admit that he did not feel the same about Charles as he did when he first came to Westchester.

A small, bitter part of his mind wants to attribute his changing feelings to the hormones from the baby, but biology wasn’t that powerful. If anything, they might have actually made it _easier_ for Erik to warm up to Charles.

“You’re thinking very hard.” Charles pipes up across from him. Erik blinks and comes back to reality.

“Sorry.” He says shortly. “Thinking about the baby.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but it was related to it.

Charles’ expression softens. “They are truly a wondrous little thing.” He sighs. “Honestly, I think they have me wrapped around their little finger already - before they’re even born, too.”

“I’ve never met an alpha so excited about a child that wasn’t their own.” Erik remarks, raising an eyebrow, and Charles’ cheeks flush.

“You know what I mean. I do hope that’s not...intrusive of me, to get attached to the baby. I don’t mean to claim them as mine at all, or take them from you, or, or -”

Erik raises a placating hand toward him. “I know what you mean. It’s...amusing, that’s all. It makes me feel better about the future of my family here.”

“Erik, that child is going to be so very loved,” Charles says then, blue eyes painfully earnest. “And so admired by all. I don’t think I’ve told you this, but I started the process of moving the kingdom back toward an alliance with Genosha a long while ago. I was so tired of war, so tired of the senseless death and destruction, and the stories I was told about the great union our lands once had with each other made me long for peace again.” He shifts himself forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on his bent knees. “I ensured that all who reside or work in my castle agree that we _need_ peace. Your arrival here is like the olive branch we so desperately hoped for. A sign of a brighter future.”

The omega knew it was important to Charles that he and his children were safe in Westchester, but all the time he was there he had assumed the most value he had was a conquest of war, like he had told him months ago. He’s well and truly shocked to hear that he means so much more.

“We need peace, and I hope,” Charles continues. “I hope that your stay here, as long as it may last, brings peace to you as well.”

If only Charles knew that Erik had found peace the moment he saw the lights of Westchester flickering on the horizon from inside the carriage. 

After thinking about it for a second, Erik shows him that - he slowly lowers his shields, for the first time in years, and lets Charles see what he’s done. He meets the king’s eyes and they grow wide as Erik’s thoughts and memories become clear to him.

Erik still had his demons; Shaw still lurked in the dark corners of his mind, grass wet with blood and ripples of energy emanating from a tiny, still chest haunted him when he dreamt. His mind is a dark place, and he knows it. He pushes the good feelings up towards the surface, though, so that Charles could see. 

“Oh, my friend…” Charles murmurs so softly. _“Thank you.”_

Erik’s mouth turns up in a smile, the kind of smile he reserved for comforting his children when they were troubled. “I will never be fixed, Charles. I am still scared for the baby, as illogical as that may be, but. Watching you follow through on your promises pushes the dark in my mind away. You give me hope.”

Charles reaches up to swipe the side of his hand under his eye, but his skin is still wet when he pulls it away. “Hope is enough.”

Erik makes a very bold move, then, and leans forward as much as he can to grasp Charles’ hand tight. Even in the cold room, his hand is somehow warm. “I promise you, Charles, after the baby is born things will change. Trust me - their health and safety is all I need to be sure of to finally be content.”

He can feel Charles looking around in his mind to see why that might be, and Erik thinks about Shaw in the birthing tent, inspecting each infant his omega had borne him with nothing short of judging scrutiny. He thinks about how Wanda and Pietro and Lorna’s lives were constantly held on a string in front of him by Shaw, how he threatened to kill them multiple times if Erik disobeyed. He thinks about how he was so _sure_ that Anya would be safe until Shaw found an excuse to kill her. He thinks, he thinks, and Charles understands.

The king nods jerkily, and now he doesn’t even bother to wipe the tears making their way down his cheeks away. “The child is extraordinary.” He whispers. “I can feel their beautiful little mind, like a star in the night. Not a hair on their head will be harmed as long as I am alive.”

Erik chuckles - his attention is momentarily drawn from the heat of Charles’ hand in his to the rippling movement he feels from the baby inside of him. “That’s my line.”

This time, when Charles gazes at him like he had done in the carriage, Erik finds no shame in gazing back.

\-------------

Lorna’s birthday comes and goes once again, and so does Nina’s. A celebration is held for Lorna’s ninth in the castle, planned by both Charles and Erik, with the king’s generals and confidants attending. It’s a small gathering by Westchesterian standards, but it’s the most Erik has ever been allowed to celebrate since he was a child and his parents were still alive. The Lehnsherrs and castle staff chatter and laugh and the howling winds outside stone walls feel distant.

For Nina, it’s different. Charles sends a courier to retrieve Genoshan incense from the north for Erik to burn for her, and leaves him and the children alone for the entire day while they grieve. 

Thinking about Nina, Erik once again becomes fearful of the future - he still doesn’t know whether he’s truly ready for another child so soon after she was killed, it’s almost like a dishonor to her memory to move on so soon, but he had no choice in the baby’s conception. Despite it all, Erik’s willing to see what the future holds without resistance. The baby should be coming any day now, and there’s not much more time to spend worrying about them.

True to form, ice is beginning to melt off the trees in the castle gardens when Erik first feels the pains of labor seize him.

He doesn’t say anything about it until they get too intense to ignore - it isn’t until late afternoon, when Wanda is beginning to look at him anxiously every five seconds, that he decides now’s the time. He tells her to have someone call for the king and royal advisor, and presses his lips to the side of her head as she hugs him tight around the neck.

Just after she leaves, Erik weathers through another contraction, one that makes him grip the sheets of his bed hard enough to rip and tear. No matter how many times he has done this, the pain never gets easier to handle. Never.

Charles shows up with both Hank and Jean in tow, and strangely enough four other attendants. Erik still has enough energy to shoot him a disgruntled look and while Jean goes to find the children and Hank with his assistants start to prepare the room for a birth, Charles sits next to him on the side of the bed.

“What are they doing?” Erik asks him, looking around at the number of people in the room with no little amount of annoyance.

Charles looks surprised. “They’re to help with the birth, of course.”

“Here?” Erik questions, raising an eyebrow. “In my own quarters?”

“Yes?” 

Erik closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I will never understand some of your traditions.”

There’s a breath of a laugh from Charles, then, among all the rustling from the...nurses. Erik plants both of his hands on the edge of the mattress on his sides as he feels his insides start to tighten again.

“Breathe.” Charles murmurs, and a spot of warmth lands on his lower back. “Would you rather I leave you alone for your labor? I don’t know how omegas do it in Genosha.”

“In Genosha, the alpha _should_ be with their omega during a birth - unh.” Erik pauses and goes still through the worst of the contraction. “But Shaw never attended me. I don’t know what having an alpha in the room would do.”

“Not much, if they aren’t your mate.” Charles notes. “It’s been studied and proven that unrelated alphas have no effect on the hormone levels of the laboring omega. Hank here did the experiment on it.”

Erik glances back toward Hank, who is wringing his hands and speaking quietly to one of his assistants. He looks back to Charles - “...You can stay. I’ll need something to hold on to.”

The smile Charles has got on his face looks a little too relieved to belong to an ‘unrelated’ alpha. “Whatever you need, my friend. I promise I won’t leave.”

“Where are the children?”

“With Jean,” Charles cocks his head out the door of the Lehnsherrs’ quarters. “She’s going to take care of them until the baby comes.”

Erik nods. Good. He hopes being with Lady Jean would comfort Wanda’s fears.

Hank pipes up then to hesitantly ask Erik to move fully onto the bed, just so he can be checked for progress, nothing invasive. Erik obeys more to stop Hank from talking than anything else, and Charles settles into a chair next to him, leaning his cane on one of the arms. His smile is still there, but he looks pale.

“Have you ever attended a birth before?” Erik asks him once he’s half-laying down and half-sitting up, in an attempt to ignore Hank tugging down his pants to get a look at him. 

Charles is sheepish when he shakes his head. “No. It can’t be that bad, right?”

“Oh, Charles.” Erik laments, reaching out to pat Charles’ leg. “Brace yourself.”

It turns out that Erik probably also needed to brace himself, because the moment one of the assistants gets their hands on him he violently shakes her off. “Get your hands off me.” He’s growling at her, actively at the peak of another contraction, and she looks at Hank helplessly and at a loss for what to do.

Hank clears his throat. “Milord - Erik, sorry, Erik - the nurses are here to help support you and keep you awake lest the birth gets too much for you to handle. Please, ah… please don’t hurt anyone.”

Charles shoots Hank a look that illustrates something irritated, and Erik asks him what he’s thinking.

With a sigh, Charles replies, “He’s wondering if you should have been collared, but that’s not going to happen, is it Hank.” he raises an eyebrow at the doctor and he shakes his head, ashamed.

Erik glares at him. “I can’t promise anything, McCoy. I don’t want them touching me.”

“But what if you need help getting into another position, or you start to fall unconscious, or - “

“Shut up!” Erik barks. “I know how this goes, you idiot, I’ve had five children.” And with a venomous look at the other nurses, he spits “I bet none of them have had any at all.”

Charles rubs his temples. “Erik, that’s rude, and you know it.”

“I can’t find myself very concerned about _manners_ right now, your majesty.” Charles just sighs and places his head in the palm of his hand, and Erik turns his anger back to Hank. “If I need help, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise, _don’t touch me.”_

Hank gulps. The nurses back away from Erik and dutifully stand to the side, waiting. Charles’ head is still in his hand, but his voice pipes up in Erik’s mind; _If you find yourself unable to speak and want to request something from them, just think it to me._

Erik nods jerkily, even though Charles can’t currently see it. _I will._

And a moment later, out loud, he adds - “Thank you.”

Hank looks up at him, bewildered, and so does Charles. From his thoughts, he can see Charles realize that that was Erik’s attempt at making peace with the doctor before active labor began and he lost control of his manners entirely.

“You - you’re welcome?” Hank stammers, but Erik’s already ignoring him again. Charles leans forward and grasps one of Erik’s hands in his own, and Erik gratefully squeezes it back. There was a long way to go, but at least he had something to hold onto.

\------------

Hours pass.

Afternoon turns into evening turns into night, and Charles is still there.

At some point Erik had snarled at the nurses to help him get onto his knees, and they had obediently done so. One of them, a tall young man, was acting as Erik’s support and let him hang onto his shoulders as the baby stubbornly made its slow process downward in his hips. Hank checked his dilation every ten minutes, and Charles still held his hand.

Erik is no stranger to a long labor - Anya and Nina both took their sweet time in entering the world - but it’s taking his energy away, bit by bit. The nurse he’s leaning on has steady hands on his thighs, keeping him up when he couldn’t do it himself.

He wonders if it’s taking so long because of how much has changed since his last pregnancy. The culture shock from Westchester, the sudden lack of danger that only heightened his paranoia, the still healing wound in his heart that Nina’s death had left - perhaps his body was still unaccustomed to its new circumstances and that’s why it was so damn slow in getting the baby out of it.

Fingers prod at his cunt and he growls in his throat, a warning, until he hears Hank speak. “Water could be breaking at any time.” He mutters to one of the assistants. 

Charles stays silent, steadfast. Erik is frankly very surprised that the alpha had stayed the entire time, even though he’s never watched an omega give birth before. He was scared, that much was obvious from his pallor and his tight grip on Erik’s hand, but he was a man who kept his promises, and he had promised not to depart.

All those months ago, when Logan had told Erik that Charles wanted to make reparations, he didn’t believe it. Now, after learning the full extent of Charles’ intentions and feelings for him, he could. This, by far, was the most obvious demonstration of the king’s determination to do right by Erik, no matter what. It meant more to him than Charles would likely ever know - no one had ever committed to him like that before.

He acted like a proper mate toward Erik, despite not being one, and whether he meant to or not, Erik was starting to act like one back. The realization changes something inside of him, but he has no time to think on it when he feels something physical give and something else subsequently wet his legs. Finally.

Erik must have cried out, but he isn’t aware of it if he did - the only sign he gets is Charles’ concerned expression and his worried look toward Hank. He feels a hand on his shoulder but it’s large, cold, and not Charles’. “I assume you know what to do here, Erik, so I’m not going to try and guide you. Everything looks okay so far, so go ahead and push.”

He didn’t need any _confirmation_ to start pushing, he wants to yell, he likely knew more about childbirth than anyone in the room, but words are hard to come by right now. He buries his head into the shoulder of the nurse he’s leaning on and grits his teeth as he bears down.

After a while, Erik has no energy to stay up on his knees anymore, and to his chagrin another assistant of Hanks’ has to help him lay back down. The two of them keep his back fairly upright against the pillows layered at the head of the bed, and this way he can more easily hold onto Charles, so it’s somewhat of an improvement.

During a break between pushes, he peels his eyes open, and notices blood on Charles’ hand under where his fingernails dug in. “Don’t worry.” The king says to him, reading Erik’s jumbled thoughts about accidentally hurting him, and he reaches up to brush a sweaty strand of hair off of his forehead. Erik doesn’t protest.

It’s hard for him to register how much progress he’s made in getting the baby out - everything below his waist is white-hot agony, so much he’s just below going numb from the pain, and his throat is raw from panting and groaning. Blood is rushing in his ears and he couldn’t hear Hank tell him how he’s doing if he tried. Having so many people in the room was overwhelming at first, but they’ve all faded into the background as everything condensed into a single note of suffering.

It feels like an eternity and at the same time a mere few minutes to take for the child to be born. With an immense heave after multiple hours of pushing, and after the newly-placed sheets on the bed are soaked with blood, Charles gives an audible gasp and Erik collapses his full weight on the two nurses who are holding him up, dragging them down onto the bed with him.

It’s quiet for an agonizing few seconds except for the sound of Erik’s labored breaths and the twittering of the birds greeting a new morning outside, until Hank laughs and a baby screams.

Erik somehow finds the strength to lift his head up to look at the child, and sees Hank gently cleaning the blood and birthing fluids off of their tiny body. They’re very indignant at being forced out into the world without their consent and being handled by a stranger, but all that changes when they’re set down on Erik’s chest.

“It’s a boy.” Charles murmurs, voice wet and tone reverent. The baby nestles into Erik’s skin and quiets down almost immediately, wisps of dark hair covering his fragile head, and with shaking arms Erik cradles him to his chest.

A boy, just like he wanted. Pietro finally has a brother.

“Oh, my boy,” Erik rasps. “Luck favors you.” He strokes the newborn’s head and he makes a quiet little snuffling sound. “Yes, hello. Hello, my son.”

“He’s a telepath.” Charles whispers. Erik looks over at him, tired and confused.

Charles motions to his temple - “He’s reaching out with his power already, he’s - he’s trying to communicate.” A disbelieving laugh, and he wipes tears out of his eyes. “He’s saying hello.”

Erik doesn’t make any move to dry his own eyes as he looks back down at his new son, astounded. A telepath, just like Charles. Even though he wasn’t the boy’s sire, the gods seemed to decide that he should have been. “Amazing.” He breathes.

Rubbing his aching hand, Charles sighs dreamily. “You’re right. That was a terrifying thing to witness.” Erik exhales a short laugh, but he continues. _“But,_ I’ve never felt more honored in getting to.” He murmurs

“You’ll make a good father.” Erik drawls, and then halts. Was that his overwhelmed, primal omega mind speaking, or was that genuine?

Maybe a mix of both, he thinks, watching Charles gaze at the baby like he was the sun, moon and stars all in one. It wasn’t like he’d rather have Shaw around instead of him.

“My friend, I can only hope to one day be as substantial of a parent as you are.” Charles tells him, setting one hand gently at the back of his head on the pillows. Erik can feel the ring Lorna made for him on his index finger.

They’re so close Erik could tilt his head up and kiss him, but he doesn’t.

“I’m nothing so special.” He sighs, and Charles shakes his head.

“Not special? Look at what you’ve made.” He murmurs. “Look at what you’ve survived. Look at what you’ve gained. You are exceptional, my friend.”

Erik hums, stroking his thumb over his son’s cheek, and he chuckles when Charles hesitantly leans forward and kisses the crown of his head.

“What was that for?” He asks, but there’s no bite to his words. He’s too tired.

“I…” Charles hesitates. “...I just - I’m very proud of you.”

Erik raises an eyebrow.

“Fine, fine.” Charles relents. “you’ve caught me. I really do...I really do care about you quite a bit, Erik.” He lifts his head to see if Hank or any of the nurses were listening: they weren’t, for they were busy cleaning Erik and the bed up. “You make me very happy.”

He sighs. “I know, Charles. I’ve known since we first met.”

Charles covers his mouth with his hand to hide the flush to his cheeks. “Am I that obvious?”

“Yes. And foolish, too.” Then Erik finally lifts his gaze from the baby to Charles’ eyes. “But I think I forgive you now.”

Charles sags in his chair. “You told me that the baby needed to be born for you to finally find peace here. Have you found it?”

Contentment? Maybe. Happiness? Perhaps. Nothing’s as sure to Erik, however, as whether he’s at peace or not.

“I have.”

Charles’ attitude toward the baby is a stark indication of the Lehnsherrs’ future in Westchester, and perhaps their future anywhere else as well. Erik wanted to see it to believe it, and he was seeing it now: his family would be okay.

With amusement in his tone, he adds - “I’m not having any more children, though. You can count on that.”

Taken off-guard, Charles laughs, and so does Erik (even if it pulls at some aching muscles in his torso). “I believe that. Four is enough for me.”

“And if I’m to take the throne in Genosha someday,” Erik says with a pointed glance at him, “I don’t want to be stuck taking care of any more babies.”

Charles’ eyes widen minutely. “So you do want to go back?”

Erik nods. “Someday. I don’t know when exactly, but yes, someday I want to go back. To secure my parents’ legacy.”

“I’ll wait with you as long as it takes for you to decide.” The alpha says gently. “As long as you heal from all you’ve been through, whatever you do will make me happy.”

“You really are in love.” Erik teases him, shaking his head.

“Oh, that’s such an extreme way of putting it…”

“But you are. Charles, I…” Suddenly, Erik can’t find the words. “...I’m flattered, and I’ve found myself being fond of you as well, but I don’t want - that is, I don’t think I can...damn. I can’t say it.”

Charles nods slowly nonetheless. “I understand, Erik. Whether you choose to enter a relationship with me or anyone in the future is just that - your choice. I am not hurt by it.”

A weight lifts off of Erik’s shoulders at that. “You make the children and I happy enough already without being my alpha.” A deep breath. “I love you, but I don’t want to be your mate.”

“I love you too.” Charles answers him, melancholy painting his tone. He’s smiling though, fondly, and Erik hopes he truly isn’t hurt too bad.

On cue, Charles shakes his head. “I’m not. I promise.” And then he motions with a hand to the baby, now slumbering quietly in Erik’s arms. “What will you name him?”

It was strange - despite all the time he had, Erik had never thought to come up with a name for his new child. Depressingly, it might have had to do something with his old habits from Genosha, not knowing whether any of his children would live to even understand their name, but now he’s confident that this one will. He’ll live, and learn, and thrive, and Erik’s sure of it.

“David.” He decides, tracing his finger along his son’s velvety skin. His second son, after five children.

Charles hums. “Pietro will be happy.”

“I think everyone will.” Wanda will finally be able to rest easy, knowing that none of her siblings will ever be in danger again. Pietro will have another boy to play with, and Lorna will finally get to be a big sister. Charles will get to stay with Erik, and eventually Erik will return to his homeland. A positive future was on the horizon for perhaps the first time in his life.

Charles must’ve gleaned that from his thoughts, because his expression softens substantially. He kisses Erik again, this time feather-light on his temple. He can’t help but lean into the touch, eyes slipping closed.

When Charles pulls away, his hand is still resting on the back of Erik’s head. “Everyone including you, I hope.” His voice is so gentle.

Erik nods silently, lips curling up in a weary smile. “Yes,” He admits. “I already am.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap! sorry it took so long for me to get this chapter out, but it's a big one and my life's been pretty busy since I published the last one. i'm around 90 percent satisfied how this fic turned out in its entirety, and of course there are things i would do differently if i had to start it over from the beginning, but for my first completed multi-chapter work i don't think it's too shabby!
> 
> please comment! kudos are lovely, but comments make my day and do more for me as an author, no matter how rambly or short they might be. tell me your thoughts, i'm eager to hear them!
> 
> as always, thank you for reading. i'll no doubt be back with more cherik stuff soon, there are ideas in the works!

**Author's Note:**

> even though i meant for this to be a one-shot when i started, it got WAY too long, so i'm going to make it a multi-chapter fic because it deserves a good story arc. this is the first time i've published something like this on ao3, so wish me luck! i know there are a lot of fics out there with this kind of premise but i wanted to try and write my own :]
> 
> and tell me what you think! comments keep me motivated to write and make my day <333


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